Yahoo will give marketers refunds under click fraud settlement
Yahoo will settle a class-action click fraud lawsuit by giving refunds or ad credits to search marketers who paid for clicks made by users who had no intentions of visiting the marketers’ web sites. Marketers can submit claims for clicks dating back to January 2004.
Yahoo announced the settlement with Checkmate Strategic Group last week. Checkmate had filed the suit in June 2005, alleging that Yahoo didn’t adequately police clicks on search ads. A retired federal judge will oversee the claims process, Yahoo said.
Yahoo also agreed to appoint a traffic quality advocate dedicated solely to addressing advertisers’ concerns about click fraud and traffic quality issues. In addition, Yahoo will work with a third party to build industrywide efforts to combat click fraud, including developing a definition of click fraud and comprehensive lists of identified bots.
Under the agreement, Yahoo also will bring a panel of individual advertisers to its Clickthrough Protection headquarters to review the Clickthrough Protection systems, meet with the Clickthrough Protection team and give feedback on how Yahoo can enhance its approach to fighting click fraud.
Another provision calls for Yahoo to build a traffic quality resource center to give advertisers more information about traffic quality issues, such as click fraud, as well as solutions via FAQs, advice columns, best practices guides and additional access to analytics tools.
Yahoo also said it will let advertisers submitting claims know how long the investigation is expected to take and will give them additional detail in advertiser refund notices.
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