Search Engine Rivals Unite to Combat Click Fraud
Wednesday, 02 August 2006
The Associated Press reported today that search rivals Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are setting aside their differences and combining their efforts to determine the best methods of identifying and quantifying “click fraud,” a problem that has caused great concern among Web users and that threatens the viability of the Internet as an effective and trustworthy marketing tool.
AP noted that the mutual cooperation among such competitors demonstrates the gravity with which the search engine industry views the click fraud problem. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, according to comScore Media Metrix, together wield a huge amount of influence, commanding 86 percent of all search engine activity. And they appear determined to nip the threat of click fraud in the bud before it causes harm to the lucrative advertising market that is benefiting the search engines, says the Associated Press.
The alliance of the three search giants is part of an effort spearheaded by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which today announced that they are forming an “industry-wide Click Measurement Working Group to create a set of Click Measurement Guidelines in order to provide the detailed definition of a "click" and the standard against which clicks are measured and counted including the identification of invalid clicks and/or fraudulent clicks.” IAB said further that the guidelines “will also outline an industry driven auditing and certification recommendation for any organization involved in performance based marketing like search engines, ad networks, third party ad servers or any company that counts clicks as a part of the media currency.”
The Associated Press reported further that, in addition to the top three competitors, two smaller companies - Ask.com and LookSmart Ltd. - are also joining the alliance.