Tech giant, Google has agreed to an $11 million settlement after it was sued for terminating a publisher’s AdSense account without justification.
A California firm, Free Range Content, Inc., instituted a class-action lawsuit against the tech giant for disabling its AdSense account right before a payment was due to it, and for failing to pay the balance on the account prior to the termination.
Numerous other firms had accused Google of denying them millions of dollars due to them through the practice, which some believe it uses to shore up its own revenue.
Google reportedly agreed to the settlement to prevent a drawn-out, “burdensome” and “expensive” trial.
“As part of the settlement agreement, an $11 million fund would be created, with no more than $5,000 being paid to Class Representatives, no more than $2,750,000 being paid to the class action lawyers, and $116,045 reimbursed to the lawyers for costs and expenses.
“The rest of the money will be used to pay Settlement Class Members whose accounts were terminated or disabled by AdSense and were not paid the current balance of their accounts,” Bleeping Computers reported.
The terms of the settlement include that claimants would be divided into group 1, 2, or 3, as payments due to owners of terminated or disabled accounts vary depending on which group they fall into.
For a claimant’s claim to be admissible, a notice of dispute would have been filed in a timely manner after their account was terminated and the notice would state the terms under which the account was bound.
Reports say “Payment Group 1” publishers would receive 100% of the balance, “Payment Group 2” would receive 50%, and “Payment Group 3” would receive 30%.