The number of online coupons-and-cash-back providers defending themselves against allegations of theft has now decreased by one. An internet content creator has dropped her lawsuit against Ibotta, after the defendant came out swinging.
Jesika Brodiski of Washington state sued Ibotta back in April, accusing it of stealing sales commissions from online influencers who recommend products to their followers. Her lawsuit explained that she earns commissions when users click her affiliate links to retailers’ websites and make a purchase. But she claimed Ibotta’s browser extension, which offers cash back for online purchases, “cheats content creators” out of commissions, by substituting its own affiliate identifier if a user subsequently clicks on its links.
It’s a similar claim that dozens of other content creators have made against half a dozen other online coupon finders. Several co-plaintiffs have joined cases that Brodiski brought against Capital One Shopping and Microsoft Shopping, as well as other proposed class-action cases against PayPal, RetailMeNot, Rakuten and Klarna. But Brodiski stood alone in accusing Ibotta.
And now she no longer is. Brodiski has voluntarily withdrawn her case, without elaborating as to the reason. Her attorneys did not respond to requests for comment about the decision.
Ibotta declined to comment. But in court documents filed just before Brodiski dropped her case, Ibotta offered a blistering response to her allegations, denouncing her “incorrect view of the world” and the “many incorrect allegations” in her complaint.
For one, Brodiski alleged that Ibotta’s browser extension promises to “search the internet for coupons.” That, the defendant argued, showed a fundamental misunderstanding of what its browser extension actually does. “In reality, Ibotta’s browser extension does not search for or provide any coupons,” Ibotta countered. Instead, it “searches the internet to see whether the same product is available from a different merchant for a lower price, and it identifies cash back opportunities on websites where Ibotta has an affiliate relationship with the merchant.”
Aside from that, Brodiski’s case relies on an “incorrect assertion that Ibotta’s browser extension ‘steals’ online referral commissions owed to her,” simply because she disagrees with the industry’s “last-click attribution standard,” Ibotta continued. Brodiski “does not allege that Ibotta violated any recognized legal standard,” citing “no statute, court decision, or other source of authority” that governs how commissions should be distributed. “There is nothing wrong with a second affiliate marketer overwriting a first affiliate marketer’s tracking tag and cookie after a shopper clicks on the second affiliate marketer’s link,” thereby taking credit for influencing a sale and earning the full commission.
Ibotta delivered its most cutting remarks in dismissing Brodiski as “a frequent filer,” citing her previous lawsuits against Capital One and Microsoft on similar grounds, and the other cases brought against other online coupon providers. Ibotta called her lawsuit “the latest in a spate of scattershot copycat class actions.”
“Given this raft of recent activity, Plaintiff seems to have spent little time investigating how Ibotta’s browser extension works, which probably explains why so many of her allegations do not conform to reality,” Ibotta argued. “Had Plaintiff done a meaningful investigation of Ibotta’s browser extension, the Complaint would not be riddled with so many demonstrably false assertions seemingly lifted from other complaints about other browser extensions that work differently from Ibotta’s.”
Brodiski had previously dropped out as a lead plaintiff in her Capital One and Microsoft lawsuits, though both cases are still ongoing, led by several former co-plaintiffs. All of the other cases brought against the other coupon providers remain active as well, as the companies fight allegations that they improperly sought to divert sales commissions that the original recommenders would have received but for the coupon providers’ underhanded activity.
Saving you money online is a competitive business. But at least one company is now free to compete in the marketplace – instead of in court.
Image source: Ibotta
