On January 10, 2022, Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California denied Plaintiff’s motion for class certification in a case stemming from allegations that Google misled advertisement purchasers about the rate of “false clicks” on its platform. The court’s order provides a helpful roadmap for defeating class certification in consumer fraud cases arising under California law. Perhaps most notably, the court concluded that the named plaintiff was atypical and inadequate because (i) as a small business owner, his level of marketing sophistication differed from larger advertisers and (ii) he opted out of an arbitration clause that would likely govern a majority of the class members’ claims.

• Google sells to individuals and businesses of all sizes pay-per-click advertisements that appear across the Google platform. Plaintiff Gurminder Singh, a small business owner, signed up for this service, agreeing to pay Google for clicks on the advertisements it ran for his business on its platform.
• Plaintiff filed suit against Google, arguing that Google deceives individuals and businesses who sign up for this service by making false or misleading statements about (1) how effectively Google identifies and filters out invalid and fraudulent clicks on advertisements; and (2) the proportion of total clicks that constitute invalid or fraudulent clicks. Specifically, Plaintiff pointed to two sets of challenged statements, one which...

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