Lawyers aren't exactly storming the gates of Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, but the company could be facing a significant challenge to its AdWords program with news that a class-action lawsuit alleging fraud with respect to the pay-per-click platform has been filed.
The suit was filed late last week on behalf of attorney Hal K. Levitte, who claims that his three-month ad campaign yielded 202,528 impressions, 668 total clicks and zero conversions. San Francisco-based Schubert Jonckheer Kolbe & Kralowec, the firm representing Levitte, claims that AdWords may have similarly defrauded an entire class of advertisers.
"We believe it's a problem that affects all [Google] advertisers equally," Kimberly Kralowec, one of the plaintiffs attorneys, told InformationWeek.
The present case isn't the first time Google's AdWords program has come under fire from class-action lawyers. In April, Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP filed suit against the search giant charging that the company had failed to clarify the procedure that allowed buyers to opt out of running ads on the AdSense network. That case is pending class-action certification.
Google did not comment on the current complaint.