Search Engines Unite to Fight ‘Click Fraud’

The Internet’s leading search engines are teaming with an advertising trade group to find a better way to identify and measure “click fraud,” a scam that has raised doubts about the Web’s trustworthiness as a marketing vehicle.

The initiative, announced by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, will draw upon the expertise of Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. -- the owners of the top online search engines -- to attack a problem threatening to erode profits.

Part of the difficulty in fighting click fraud has stemmed from the inability to come up with a precise definition of the practice -- a problem the alliance hopes to solve.

Click fraud has different twists, but generally merchants are billed for fruitless traffic generated by someone who repeatedly clicks on an advertiser’s Web link with no intention of buying anything.