British ad agency files lawsuit against Uber
SAN FRANCISCO: A British mobile advertising agency has sued Uber Technologies Inc to force the ride-hailing company to pay millions of dollars of bills that Uber had refused to pay after claiming that ads being generated were fraudulent.
Fetch Media Ltd filed its lawsuit on Tuesday in the same California federal court where Uber had sued Fetch in September, accusing the agency of billing it for nonexistent, non-viewable or fraudulent ads, and failing to pass back rebates and commissions.
Uber voluntarily dismissed that lawsuit on December 22, two weeks after the case was reassigned to US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, and said it would instead pursue related claims in a San Francisco state court.
Ad fraud, sometimes called click fraud, is a persistent issue in online advertising, occurring when automated programmes mimic legitimate users by clicking ads.
Fetch, a London-based unit of Japan’s Dentsu Inc, suggested that Uber dismissed its federal case on concern it might lose after it was assigned to Rogers, who has overseen other litigation involving the San Franciscobased company.
In Tuesday’s lawsuit, Fetch asked that Rogers be assigned to determine both companies’ contractual responsibilities, and direct Uber pay more than $19.7 million of invoices still owed for 2017.
“Fetch does not believe that Uber can avoid federal-court scrutiny of its incorrect contract theories so easily,” the firm said.
The Association of National Advertisers, a trade group, last May estimated that marketers would lose $6.5 billion in 2017 because of fake web traffic caused by “bots.”