LinkedIn must face lawsuit claiming it overcharged advertisers
A U.S. judge said LinkedIn must face a lawsuit claiming it inflated the number of people who watched video ads on Microsoft’s networking platform, allowing it to overcharge hundreds of thousands of advertisers, Reuters reports.
The advertisers claim LinkedIn had been counting video ad “views” from users’ LinkedIn apps, even when the videos were playing only off-screen because users had scrolled past them.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen dismissed fraud-based claims and an unfair competition claim, saying the advertisers did not show that LinkedIn made specific misrepresentations or that its conduct hurt the public at large.
But the San Jose, California-based judge let the advertisers pursue claims based on the theory that bot traffic, errant clicks and fraudulent clicks inflated the metrics they relied on when buying LinkedIn ads.
LinkedIn said in an email it looked forward to showing the claims lacked merit and said it was “committed to the transparency and integrity of our ads products.”
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