Class Action Lawsuit Against Facebook for Click Fraud and Overcharging Advertisers   - 1,056 Views,

A class action lawsuit has been filed against Facebook, alleging that Facebook is charging advertisers for more clicks than their ads actually receive, and also that Facebook is not doing enough to curtail click fraud which is resulting, the lawsuit says, from competitors clicking on an advertiser’s Facebook advertisment in order to use up their allotted clicks and run up the advertiser’s Facebook advertising bill.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in California, was brought by RootZoo.com, a sports fan and forum site. According to RootZoo, using “two industry leading software programs that track the number of clicks to its website and where the clicks originated,” they were able to determine that Facebook was charging them for vastly more clicks than were actually occuring, on some days charging for more than twice as many clicks as RootZoo and their software were able to track. For example, says RootZoo, on one day, when they recorded 300 clicks to their site from their Facebook ad, Facebook charged them for 804 clicks.

Equally interesting, RootZoo says that many of the clicks that did occur came from small towns at such a rate that, taking into account their average Facebook ad click numbers, it “would be almost statistically impossible given the distribution of the American population.”

RootZoo did try to bring this all to Facebook’s attention before going the lawsuit route, but, says RootZoo, “Facebook has refused to take any action in response to these complaints nor has Facebook made available any of its internal data that would allow advertisers to understand the basis for the clicks on the advertisers’ advertisements which Facebook claims to have occurred.”

Of course, Facebook denies the allegations, saying that “We have developed a series of sophisticated systems to detect suspicious clicks and ensure advertisers are not charged for this activity. In addition, we analyze tremendous amounts of data to discern larger click patterns and, in rare cases where this research or other analysis reveals advertisers have been charged for invalid clicks, we have always, and will continue to, issue credits to impacted advertisers.”

RootZoo is asking for unspecified damages, along with reimbursement for the clicks that they claim were overcharged, and for Facebook to be restrained from using “unfair” and “fraudulent” practices.