Northern District of California Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton refused to certify a proposed of online advertisers in In re: Facebook Inc. PPC Advertising Litigation. The court held that the proposed class representatives did not show that they were harmed by the alleged violations.
The complaint alleged that Facebook charged advertisers for cost-per-click, or CPC, advertising, even when the clicks did not result in any benefit to the plaintiffs. The crux of the problem, the court explained, was that the name plaintiffs could not adequately represent the class because they failed to show that Facebook’s alleged wrongdoing damaged their businesses. “Neither [name plaintiff, the court explained] has attempted to show that he suffered any concrete injury from specific ‘invalid’ clicks, or that he ever disputed his CPC charges within the period needed to avoid waiver under his contract.”