By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) - LinkedIn agreed to pay $6.625 million to settle a proposed class action accusing the Microsoft unit of overcharging advertisers by inflating how many people watched video ads on its platform.
A preliminary settlement was filed late Thursday in San Jose, California federal court, and requires approval by U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen in San Jose, California.
LinkedIn denied wrongdoing. It also agreed to use reasonable efforts for two years to hire an outside auditor to review its ad metrics.
Advertisers led by TopDevz of Sacramento, California and Noirefy of Chicago accused LinkedIn of inflating ad metrics by counting video ad "views" from users' LinkedIn apps, even when videos played only off-screen because users scrolled past them.
