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Facebook to pay $40 million to settle lawsuit over video viewing times

Advertisers claimed in the lawsuit that metrics supposedly showing the average viewing time of video ads was inflated by up to 900%.
Credit: AP
FILE- In this file photo taken March 28, 2018, the Facebook logo is shown on a sign at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.

OAKLAND, Calif — Facebook has agreed to pay $40 million to advertisers who said it inflated the amount of time its users watched videos.

The San Jose Mercury News says the California-based social media giant denied any wrongdoing in a lawsuit settlement. The settlement notice was filed Friday by the plaintiffs in Oakland federal court.

Advertisers sued Facebook in 2016 over user metrics that supposedly measured the average length of time consumers spent viewing posted video ads. The lawsuit said that the time was inflated by up to 900% and that helped convince advertisers to buy Facebook's video advertising services.

Facebook publicly acknowledged an error in the formula. The company denied allegations that its engineers knew about problems for more than a year and did nothing.

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