Update:
- A three-judge panel reversed a federal court decision and dismissed a lawsuit that claimed Google obtained more than $1 billion in free advertising by inserting ads on Android devices.
- Judges J. Clifford Wallace, Sidney R. Thomas and Danielle J. Forrest say federal copyright law overrides the state-law claims in the lawsuit and thus the claims cannot stand.
- U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Davila made the prior decision to allow the complaint to stand, which Google appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
(July 16, 2020)
Google has been hit with a class action lawsuit from a business owner who claims the search giant placed cost-free advertisements on the business’ website without his consent.
Plaintiffs Best Carpet Values Inc. and Thomas D. Rutledge say Google has unlawfully obtained over $1 billion of nonconsensual free advertising on the plaintiff’s websites. The plaintiffs also argue that Google has also derived substantial unjustly earned revenues from its free-riding advertisements.
The Google class action lawsuit states Google was able to obtain these illicit benefits by programming Android phones to impose unpaid-for advertisements on websites whenever they were viewed by Android owners who used the Google “Search app” to search the internet.
Best Carpet Values claims Google superimposed advertisements called a “leaderboard” on the bottom of the plaintiffs’ websites that contained Google’s logo. Also, Google allegedly invited its app users to click a pop-up button that expanded the leaderboard to block the affected web pages’ entire contents by superimposing half-page advertisements for Google products, for their advertising network clients or for other businesses.
“Thus, Google’s free-riding leaderboard and half-page ads were designed to induce (or ‘nudge’ in advertising parlance) Android users to leave Plaintiffs’ and the Class’s sites — which generated no fees for Google — in favor of other websites that could generate income for Google,” the Google ad profits class action lawsuit goes on to say.
Best Carpet Values maintains that many of the half-page pop-up advertisements promoted and linked to websites owned by their direct competitors or news articles disparaging their business. The plaintiffs state they would not have voluntarily permitted competitors’ advertisements or disparaging advertisements to appear on their websites.
The plaintiffs claim that in redirecting Android users to the websites of their competitors and detractors websites, Google’s unlawful free-riding ads damaged, or threatened to damage, the plaintiffs’ reputations and businesses, leading to lost customers, lost sales and lost goodwill.
The Google class action lawsuit goes on to state that Google has no right to superimpose advertisements on their websites just because Google makes the Android operating system and search app software through which Android users view the plaintiffs’ websites on their mobile phone screens.
“Google abused its control over Android mobile phones and its dominant positions in the internet search and internet advertising markets to plant non-consensual, free advertising on up to 100 million U.S.-based websites when those websites were viewed by the 50 million U.S. Android owners who use Google’s Search App,” the Google class action lawsuit maintains.
In addition, the plaintiffs say Google’s cost-free advertisements diminished the value of the affected websites by forcing their owners to endure the unexpected and unwanted risk that Android users who opened the plaintiffs’ websites would be distracted and diverted to the advertisements, thus costing the website owners goodwill and prospective sales.
Google exploited its power in the internet search, advertising and Android markets to injure predominantly small to mid-sized businesses and individual website owners, the plaintiffs say. They state Google did not impose its nonconsensual free-riding advertisements on websites owned by powerful corporations and other large commercial entities.
“Google’s non-consensual free-riding ads unjustly deprived website owners of advertising revenues, extracted undue profits for Google, trampled on website owners’ free speech and property rights, reduced the value of their websites, and in many cases damaged the website owners’ sales and reputations,” the Google profits class action lawsuit argues.
The plaintiffs also contend Google’s non-consensually imposed advertisements have intruded on the website owners’ limited space and created immediate distractions that threatened to undermine every web page’s central purpose.
In addition, Best Carpet Values says Google’s leaderboard and related pages’ banner advertisements did not appear on Google’s own websites or on those of its major competitors, such as Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple.
“Google’s misuse of its technological and market superiority to obtain ordinarily expensive advertising on tens of millions of websites free of charge is an unconscionable abuse of commercial power that reflects a high degree of moral turpitude,” says the Google class action lawsuit.
Common questions of law and fact in the Google class action lawsuit include whether an implied-in-law contract exists between Google and the plaintiffs because the Google search app conferred free advertising benefits and unjust profits upon Google, and whether Google trespassed on the plaintiffs’ websites because its search app imposes Google-generated advertisements on the plaintiffs’ websites.
Prospective class members include “all persons or entities residing in the United States that owned websites that were active between March 2018 and April 2020 (the ‘Class Period’) on which Google’s logo and Related Pages banner ads appeared when their websites were viewed by Android mobile phone owners using the Search App.”
Do you own a website in which Google placed advertisements without your permission? Leave a message in the comments section below.
The plaintiffs are represented by Alex Asil Mashiri of the Mashiri Law Firm, Alexander H. Schmidt of Alexander H. Schmidt, Esq. and D. Anthony Mastando and Eric J. Artrip of Mastando & Artrip LLC.
The Google Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Best Carpet Values Inc., et al. v. Google LLC, Case No. 5:20-cv-04700, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
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