Okay, I've now read your links, though I don't have any Google internal information here.
It sounds to me like people who hired Google to bid for them on various exchanges ended up with some invalid traffic. The lawsuit is over, essentially, who is responsible for the risk when bids are wasted on fake traffic. The OP is essentially arguing that the entire advertising industry is fraudulent, and that there is no legitimate traffic, which is worlds away from a dispute over how to handle the risk of fraudulent traffic when it does occur.
(Again: I work for Google but I don't know anything about this case and I'm speaking only for myself)
I wrote the article, so apologies if it's not clear. I don't mean to suggest that the entire online advertising ecosystem is fraudulent. However, there are billions of dollars worth of digital ad fraud occuring every year. Even the IAB agree on that one.
And a related discussion on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20032847
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