Since there was a little Google-hate yesterday, how about some Yahoo-hating today?

There is an interesting blog post by Jeff Molander over at ThoughtShapers.com about the Yahoo Checkmate PPC fraud lawsuit.

As I pointed out in August when I recieved a copy of the class action lawsuit, the definition of PPC fraud included some interesting additions: unwanted clicks, unqualified clicks, improper clicks, non-converting clicks, inadequately converting clicks.

I thought it was a case of lawyers being sneaky. It was, but not how I thought. Why would non-converting clicks be included? As any PPC ad buyer knows, the majority of your clicks don’t convert! This would be akin to saying my car spedometer says 120 mph but when I start it up, its at 0.

So why would they include all this rubbish in the lawsuit? Here is a possible answer: in my opinion, Checkmate Strategic Group included them to “bribe” Yahoo into settling this lawsuit quickly. Free money for Checkmate: $5 million. Even better, as Jeff points out, everyone was essentially opted-in in to the lawsuit. If you didn’t follow the directions to leave it, good luck.

For Yahoo, they’ve now slipped out of obligations on a broad range of non-PPC fraud issues. Altogether, they’ve paid a tiny price to wipe away a potentially expensive lawsuit.

This story isn’t really about Yahoo or Checkmate or even click fraud. Its about class action lawsuits. You get a few dollars. The lawyers get a few million. Not a bad business to be in huh?