Will Yahoo!s $1 million lawsuit change anything for PPC advertisers? Certainly not if Andy Beal is right in his prediction.
Lawsuits such as this one usually take years to run their course – if they go all the way through to the end and a decision is made by a court. In a lot cases, they end before they get there and the litigants settle out of court. It is likely that Yahoo! will settle out of court as well. It won’t benefit them to let a judge decide the case as they will to disclose details about their advertising programs that they don’t want public. Google would play it the same way.
In fact, Google already has been the target of several lawsuits and each has ended with the same fate or looks as if they will. None of the PPC companies can afford to lose a judgment and none can afford for a competitor to lose. It would likely lead to legislation and regulation and nobody wants that. Settlement is better. The question is, How much will the parties settle for?
In the end, when it comes to click fraud, there are few alternatives for advertisers other than the course that Bigred has taken.
