Facebook Class Action Says Advertisers Pay for Inflated ‘Cost per Click’

Facebook faces another class action lawsuit, this time from an advertiser alleging that the social media site inflates its “cost per click” revenue by clicking ads itself.

Plaintiff and business owner Tony Kramer recently filed the Facebook class action lawsuit claiming that the social media site incorporates its own “stealth clicks” in order to charge businesses and advertisers more.

Between August 2016 and present, Kramer placed numerous “cost per click” ads on Facebook and was allegedly charged for stealth clicks.

For one ad, which ran from Nov. 25 to Nov. 26, 2016, Facebook reportedly charged him for 135 platform link clicks. This number allegedly included stealth clicks.

When a business advertises through Facebook, they agree to either a “cost per impression” ad campaign or a “cost per click” ad campaign. In a cost-per-click ad, Facebook allegedly debits money from an advertiser every time an ad is clicked at a predetermined rate.

The Facebook class action lawsuit claims that Facebook counts its own pre-fetch clicks as consumer clicks and charges them accordingly. On the Facebook mobile app, the system sends a request to visit internet links when an advertisement loads on a consumers feed.

According to the Facebook advertising class action lawsuit, this “HTTP GET” function loads content in advance if a consumer decides to click on any link or ad on their feed. The Facebook class action argues that the social media site includes these “stealth clicks” in their consumer click count, inflating data and charging advertisers when they shouldn’t be.

By including stealth clicks in their advertising data analytics, Facebook allegedly influences advertiser decision making. If an advertiser sees a higher number for their ad engagement, they are more likely to continue advertising through Facebook and generate revenue for the social media website.

“Facebook provides link click performance data to Advertisers. This data drives Advertiser decision making and, thus, increases Facebook’s Ad revenue. By including Stealth Clicks in the count, Facebook artificially inflates and misrepresents the results,” the Facebook ad click class action states.

Consumers allegedly cannot stop Facebook from doing this by clearing the cache on their phone. This would supposedly result in repeated stealth clicks for the same site or ad as Facebook pre-fetches the same information.

“Without access to Facebook’s back-end technology through discovery, it is impossible for plaintiff to understand precisely why, how, and when Facebook counts and charges for stealth clicks,” the Facebook class action lawsuit argues.

Kramer seeks to represent a Class of advertisers who purchased a cost per click or cost per impression ad from Facebook. He also seeks to represent a subclass of advertisers who specifically purchased a cost per click ad from Facebook and were charged for stealth clicks generated by the mobile app.

The Facebook ad clicks class action lawsuit seeks restitution, damages, court costs, and attorneys’ fees.

Kramer is represented by Kathryn S. Diemer of Diemer & Wei LLP; Phillip A. Bock, Daniel J. Cohen, and Molly S. Gantman of Bock Hatch Lewis & Oppenheim LLC; and Ilan Chorowsky, Mark Bulgarelli, and Adam Urbanczyk of Progressive Law Group LLC.

The Facebook Advertising Clicks Class Action Lawsuit is Kramer v. Facebook Inc., Case No. 3:18-cv-03113, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.