Google shells out $90M in click-fraud lawsuit

Google has agreed to pay up to $90 million to settle a class action lawsuit over advertising fraud by outside parties on its site, in a bid to put the controversy behind it.

The settlement stems from a lawsuit filed by Lane's Gifts earlier this year in an Arkansas state court and looks to have settled all outstanding claims against Google for fraud committed using its pay-per-click ad system back to 2002.

If this is the case (and it may not be so entirely) and if Google really has gone a long way to putting click-fraud behind them - then this is an important step for them. I just wonder whether further technical and legal bells and whistles are necessary to really deal stamp out such fraud. We'll see.