Summary
Companies that bought Google search ads aimed at US users since August 2016 have an antitrust overcharge claim.
- A realistic recovery range is 10–15% of that spend, before our fees and after a two to three year wait.
- Two routes: pursue it at no upfront cost, or sell it for cash.
- The effort to pursue the claim is minimal: a few minutes of account access to get detailed spend records.
What happened
In August 2024 a federal court found that Google illegally maintained monopolies in general search and search text advertising and used that power to overcharge advertisers. A second court found in April 2025 that Google also monopolized key parts of the ad tech market. Google calls the claims unfounded and is appealing both.
Why each advertiser has a claim
Google adjusted its auction in ways that raised what a winning ad paid with no change in bids, ad quality or competition. Its head of ads products testified that some changes raised costs about 5% for the typical advertiser and up to 10% on some queries, and that Google tends not to tell advertisers about pricing changes.
What a claim is worth
Antitrust law triples proven damages, so a 5 to 10% overcharge becomes a gross claim of 15 to 30% of eligible search spend (expected to settle at a lower value). That is a ceiling, not a payout: an arbitrator or a settlement sets the amount, our fee and the costs we advance come out of it, and payment is likely two to three years away, with Google’s appeals pending.
How claims proceed
Google’s terms require each advertiser to arbitrate individually, so there is no class action to join for the overcharge itself. Thousands of individual demands have already been filed and no retaliation against claimants has been reported.
In July 2026, as demands mounted, Google rewrote its arbitration terms to shift fees onto claimants and strip procedural rights the earlier terms gave them. The change was unilateral and purports to reach existing claims, and we are preparing a court challenge to it. Either way the claim proceeds. That fight is about cost and procedure, not whether the claim exists.
Two routes
File on contingency
No upfront cost. The firm advances the arbitration costs and is paid only out of a recovery. The advertiser carries the wait and the uncertainty.
Sell the claim
A buyer pays cash at closing, takes over the claim, funds the case and carries the risk and the years. The price is a fraction of the claim’s face value, by design, because the buyer is providing certainty and liquidity in place of risk.
If you would rather not wait, some advertisers prefer to sell all or part of their claim for cash now. AdsCreditor buys Google Ads claims. It is a separate company, not a law firm, and it shares investors with the firm’s technology and capital provider. Silver Arbitration Law, PLLC does not represent you in any sale and does not advise on whether to sell. Consider independent advice before you do.
What counts, and what it takes
Any account with more than $10k of cumulative search spend since August 2016 is worth a look.
- Eligible spend: Google Ads search spend targeting US users since August 2016, including the search portion of Performance Max campaigns. Which Google entity billed the account doesn’t matter.
- Who owns the claim: whoever paid Google. For a company running its own account that’s simple, and where an agency ran the ads the claim is still the client’s.
- What the advertiser does: the spend history lives in the Google Ads account and we pull and parse it, so the advertiser’s side is a few minutes of read-only access or a billing export per account.
- Display spend: carries a related claim under the ad tech ruling. Its value is less settled, and it can be included.
Who we are
Mark Beckett leads our litigation team. He was head of international arbitration at Cooley and before that at Latham & Watkins. Our firm, Silver Arbitration Law, PLLC, is based in New York and was established to focus entirely on this matter.
My own background is corporate law in New York and at Apple, then as the CFO of a venture-backed startup.
Check it yourself
If you want to check this independently, paste this into ChatGPT or Claude:
Further reading
- The August 2024 rulingThe New York Times
- A walkthrough of the DOJ’s case on search ad pricingSearch Engine Land
- The DOJ’s closing deck on search advertisingDepartment of Justice · The slides behind the Search Engine Land piece
- The court’s August 2024 liability opinionCopy hosted by the Texas Attorney General, a co-plaintiff · PDF
- The DOJ’s case pageDepartment of Justice · Filings and opinions
- Jerry Dischler’s trial testimonyThe Capitol Forum · Redacted transcript, PDF
- The advertiser arbitration waveBloomberg · Free copy via The Spokesman-Review
- Google’s 2026 changes to its advertiser arbitration termsBoies Schiller Flexner
- Google’s appealBBC
- Our team on what advertisers should check nextSearch Engine Journal
Attorney advertising. Silver Arbitration Law, PLLC. The attorney responsible for this advertising is Marshall Silver. General educational material, not legal advice. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome, and no recovery is guaranteed. The firm is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. Court rulings may be appealed or modified.