When I learned about YSM running PPC ads through spyware and adware companies a few weeks ago I cut my ad spend there in 1/2. Should have really just cancelled the whole account on principle, but I’m greedy and still want the Yahoo search traffic. There were reports long ago that Overture was playing in the sandbox with Gator and this lawsuit alleges Yahoo is still in bed with the wrong people and even uses these bad relationships to bump up their revenue around earnings times.

Our friend Ben Edelman is on the case and helping once again to fight adware and clean up our industry. He wrote about The Spyware - Click-Fraud Connection and Yahoo’s Role back in April before the lawsuit was publicized. ThreadWatch “Yahoo! PPC Fraud on Trial” and Search Engine Roundtable “Class Action Law Suit Against Yahoo! for Click Fraud & Spyware” are 2 of the sources I read this morning that scooped the story about the new class action lawsuit.


Suit Levels Spyware, Typosquatting Allegations at Yahoo - Washington Post Blog “The suit alleges that Yahoo defrauded pay-per-click advertisers who thought they were paying to have their ads displayed alongside search-engine results generated by certain keywords that the advertisers bid on. The complaint alleges that “by placing ads into illegal platforms such as spyware programs, [Yahoo] wrongfully collected high search engine advertising fees for ads that are actually shown in contexts that are worth far less, if anything. It is well known that spyware advertising is much cheaper than search engine advertising.”