WebProNews

People who may be affected by a class action lawsuit against Google have been receiving some interesting notices in their inboxes lately.  It looks like certain AdWords advertisers are on track to split a $20 million settlement starting September 14th. 

The lawsuit stemmed from accusations that Google would sometimes exceed advertisers' daily budgets.  Google, while denying any wrongdoing, agreed to compensate them with $20 million in a mixture of cash and AdWords credits, and now it's down to the settlement hearing in September to determine exactly what will happen next.

As explained in a settlement notice obtained by Barry Schwartz, "The purpose of the Settlement Hearing will be, among other things: (1) to determine whether the proposed Settlement Agreement is fair, reasonable and adequate to the Class and should be approved by the Court . . . and (2) to consider the reasonableness of an application by Representative Plaintiffs' Counsel for payment of attorney's fees and reimbursement of costs and expenses incurred in connection with the Action and for incentive compensation award to the Representative Plaintiffs."

A preliminary arrangement would, as noted in April by Chris Crum, see lawyers getting $5,000,000, the two representative plaintiffs receiving $20,000 each, and everybody else dividing the $14,960,000 in leftovers.

Affected advertisers may want to either plan for a little free credit, then, or get their paperwork in order if they for some reason want to be excluded from the legal class.