More on the Click Fraud Lawsuit

by Sapphire (April 13, 2005)

I blogged recently about a first-of-its-kind click fraud lawsuit.

The case is being lead by Lane’s Gifts & Collectibles out of Arkansas and is involves Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, AOL, Walt Disney, Lycos and FindWhat.

The case has yet to be certified, but it alleges that the engines somehow conspired together to inflate costs and charge for fraudulent clicks. It’ll be fascinating to see what evidence they present, if the case proceeds.

For most of us, what this case really boils down to is, as Mikkel deMib Svendsen summed it up:

I would like if the courts decide that the liability is on the engines side so that THEY have to prove valid clicks instead of US having to prove fraud.

At the moment, the SE’s have zero accountability on this issue. Even if we trust that they’re doing their best to fight fraud, the fact is they want to turn PPC advertising into a major industry. To do that, they have to provide some sort of indications, some sort of data, to show that it’s working well enough to justify the costs. Right now, the SE’s want to say, “Trust us - we can’t tell you HOW we’re preventing fraud, because that would give away our secrets to the fraudsters, but we ARE working on it”. While I understand their point of view, that’s simply no way to get people to part with cash. People need to see how the fraud prevention is working, and they need to see proof it’s working.

How much click fraud should advertisers expect to have to deal with? The point has been made that if you run an ad in the newspaper or on television, you have no right to expect everyone to buy your product just because their TV was on when the ad ran. But the appeal of PPC advertising from the get-go was trackability. You may not know whether someone saw your TV ad or went to the kitchen during it, but thanks to the magic of computers, you were supposed to know for sure who visited your site, who clicked through, who bought. But fraud has permeated every bit of that cycle, and now its reliability isn’t so clear. If the SE’s want PPC to be taken seriously, they’re going to have to address this problem, like it or not. They have to convince people they’re doing their best, and there best is good enough.

If you’re concerned about fraud, check the links in this handy post from I, Brian at SearchEngineWatch. The whole thread is a good read, and raises a lot of important issues.

Posted in PPC
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