Yahoo Click Fraud Settlement Increases Transparency - Yahoo’s Additional Terms
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Practically all of Yahoo’s additional terms aim at increasing the company’s transparency in its handling of click fraud, and letting its advertisers know that they have a voice within the search engine that will be heard. For example, one term mandated by the settlement obligates Yahoo to appoint an ombudsman, a “Traffic Quality Advocate” to address advertiser concerns about click fraud and traffic quality. This person is specifically intended to “serve as the internal voice of the advertiser within Yahoo! on these matters,” according to Yahoo’s web site.
Understanding that visibility works both ways, Yahoo agreed to a third term in the settlement that further opens up its click through protection system to its advertising customers. Once a year, the venerable search engine will bring a panel of individual advertisers to its CTP headquarters. These advertisers will then be able review Yahoo’s CTP systems, meet with the team responsible for fighting click fraud, and give Yahoo feedback on how it’s doing and how it can improve.
Recognizing that click fraud permeates the entire industry, not just one or two companies, Yahoo agreed to address this problem in the fourth term mandated by the settlement. The company will work with reputable third parties to build industry-wide efforts to fight click fraud. These include developing an industry-wide definition of click fraud. Frankly, it’s amazing to me that there isn’t such a definition yet; how are you supposed to fight something if you don’t have a definition of what it is?
Even more usefully, this industry-wide effort will include creating a list of recognized click bots, and other measures. It will be interesting to see if perhaps the technical wizards at Yahoo can come up with some kind of software protection for its affiliate advertising network that fights click bots the way that antivirus software fights other malware; for all I know, such a system may already be part of the company’s click through protection.
The final step mandated by Yahoo’s settlement sounds like a real contribution to transparency. The search engine said it will build a Traffic Quality Resource Center, charged with providing advertisers with all sorts of detailed information concerning traffic quality issues and solutions, in the form of “FAQs, advice columns, best practices guides and additional access to analytics tools.”
Next: Yahoo Goes Above and Beyond >>
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