A few days ago I recieved an e-mail about a class action lawsuit, today I recieved two mailings about it one addressed to me, the other one of my LLCs. Since it appears any US resident/company advertising on Yahoo Search Marketing has recieved this, I am going to comment on it.

The search engines are feeling a lot of pressure over click fraud right now. Its a multi-billion dollar industry so obviously it is going to attract trial lawyers. Last week Google released a report refuting many of the click fraud claims that click auditing companies, such as Adwatcher have made. (For the record, I use Adwatcher, and I have recieved refunds from PPC companies based on the data it has collected.)

Since Google has been the main target it is not suprising that Yahoo has now also come under the crosshairs in this Checkmate vs Yahoo! Inc suit filed in California (by a Florida corporation against a Delaware corporation.. interesting.)

I was reading over the papers and found this very interesting:

“..including improperly collecting revenue by charging and/or overcharging Class Persons for clicks that were click fraud, click through fraud, fraudulent clicks, click spam, invalid clicks, unwanted clicks, unqualified clicks, improper clicks, non-converting clicks, inadequately converting clicks, clicks that were not reasonably expected by Class Persons or otherwise claimed by Class Persons as clicks for which Class Persons should not have been charged, and improperly collecting revenue by charging and/or overcharging Class Persons for clicks where users did not actively choose the Class Persons’ listings”

May be I’ve been in the dark, but since when is “unqualified clicks, improper clicks, non-converting clicks, or inadequately converting clicks click fraud?

I was thinking about this and I may have an explanation. One thing I have noticed with Yahoo Search Marketing is they like to change your ad copy for you. I have had both title and description mysteriously turn in to something I did not submit nor approve — and I have heard others say the same.

As usual, this just looks like a case to make some trial lawyers millionaires and hand out the actual plantiffs a couple of dollars (or coupons.) I’m not participating.