LinkedIn, a subsidiary of Microsoft, has agreed to pay $6.625 million to settle a proposed class action lawsuit accusing the platform of overcharging advertisers by inflating video ad view counts.
The preliminary settlement was filed on Thursday, 25th July, in the federal court of San Jose, California, and awaits approval from U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen. The case is titled In re LinkedIn Advertising Metrics Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 20-08324.
The lawsuit, led by TopDevz of Sacramento, California, and Noirefy of Chicago, alleged that LinkedIn counted video ad “views” even when the videos played off-screen as users scrolled past them. LinkedIn denied any wrongdoing but has agreed to use reasonable efforts over the next two years to hire an external auditor to review its ad metrics.
This legal action commenced two weeks after LinkedIn disclosed in November 2020 that engineers had resolved software bugs which may have caused over 418,000 overcharges, most of which were under $25. LinkedIn subsequently provided credits to nearly all affected advertisers.
The settlement applies to U.S. advertisers who purchased ads on LinkedIn between January 2015 and May 2023. The case had been dismissed by Judge van Keulen in December 2021, but advertisers appealed and later put the appeal on hold to mediate the dispute.
The advertisers’ lawyers are expected to request up to $1,656,250, or 25% of the settlement amount, for legal fees. Neither LinkedIn nor Microsoft has immediately responded to requests for comment on the settlement.
