Legal partnership Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro (HBSS) has announced that it has filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against Google and Yahoo! along with several other popular websites for damages.

The class-action lawsuit relates to the search engines running adverts from online gambling sites, which HBSS claims made them hundreds of millions of dollars even though against California law.

The case is to be heard on February 11 and will test the liability of these companies in California as HBSS is to ask the Court to further restrict their ability to advertise in the future.

'We believe these companies have been profiting from this illegal practice for more than a decade and we believe the agreement with the Government does not go far enough,' said Reed Kathrein, Lead Attorney for HHBS.

'The settlements are a great victory and a tacit admission by these online advertisers but there is still more work to do in holding these companies accountable for the harm they have done to Californians and to keep them and others from continuing these practices.

'Given the amounts the huge profits we believe they made, we believe these relatively small forfeiture penalties will not deter them or others in the future.'

Kathrein stated that the lawsuit calls for the websites to pay relief and acknowledge that the practice of advertising online casinos in the state is illegal.

The complaint also calls for disgorgement of profits earned from online advertisers, a figure that could exceed hundreds of millions of dollars and benefit education and rehabilitation efforts aimed at gambling addiction.

This latest lawsuit follows late-December’s $31.5 million settlement with the Federal Government by Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft over claimed online gambling advertising infringements.