A new Click Forensics report says the click fraud has increased slightly at the search engines of Google and Yahoo in the last three months. The Web giants are charging advertisers for fraudulent
clicks 14.1 percent of the time--up from 13.7 three months ago, according to the San Antonio-based consulting firm, which gleaned its information from 1,300 online marketers. According to the
Associated Press, that figure jibes with data recently released by market-research firm Outsell, which said click fraud cost advertisers $800 million last year. Many advertisers feel that Google and
Yahoo have been non-responsive about their concerns. Google offered a paltry $90 million in ad credits as the result of an earlier settlement, although many rejected the offer. Reflecting those
concerns, about 900 advertisers have joined Click Forensics' anti-fraud network during the past three months. On Google, about 12.8 percent of clicks are fraudulent--up from the 12.1 percent recorded
in April. Both Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Yahoo CEO Terry Semel maintain that their companies are doing their utmost to address the growing problem; both face pending lawsuits.
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