With the recent launch of Bing, Microsoft has been making alot of promotional fanfare. That was expected.
Seemingly almost out of nowhere, after several years of being virtually invisible to the public, click fraud appeared on the pages of the New York Times and Microsoft took on the role of being the white hat with the filing of a unique lawsuit.
Whether the timing shortly after the launch of Bing is on purpose or not, this is a highly important event. Time may one day look back at this first of it’s kind event as the most single important action Microsoft has ever taken in the battle with other search engines.
Tim Cranton, Microsoft’s Associate General Counsel, wrote a post about the lawsuit on the Microsoft on the Issues blog, entitled (DEAD URL + http://microsoftontheissues.com/cs/blogs/mscorp/archive/2009/06/15/using-enforcement-to-crack-down-on-click-fraud.aspx”) “Using Enforcement to Crack Down on ‘Click Fraud'”, Cranton stated:
Once we became aware of the click fraud attacks we quickly took action to address any impact on advertisers and to enhance safeguards to further protect our network. Today’s suit seeks an injunction to help stop this activity and to recover damages.
As I’ve stated on this blog before, the Internet is all about trust. If Microsoft can build trust by taking these actions, that is outstanding. Over time, the question is this, “Will Microsoft will be able to take trust away from other search engines regarding this issue?”
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Microsoft has an uphill battle, as does Google, click fraud I believe is rampant and tough for them to completely eliminate. Excellent blog by the way.
It’s important to know that click fraud can not only fought in courts but also with an outstanding technology.
psicologa – Excellent point. However, creating a deterrent is certainly a piece of this complex puzzle and for this first of it’s kind event Microsoft deserves praise. Can the keep focused on the goals for five and hit the inflection point? History says no. But maybe they will bring in visionary leaders to execute on the needed strategies.
As an active advertiser with Adwords and Live Center I’m glad “someone” is doing something in regards to click fraud, it’s just a joke these days that conversion rates go down while the click costs go up. A+ Microsoft!
That’s a very smart move by Microsoft. Nice blog.
It does seem that Microsoft has changed a lot, I mean it was like Googling Microsoft and come up with a lot of forums and websites that were criticizing it and for obvious reasons but now it seems they have changed their strategy after they launched Bing and suit further states the step into the right direction, has Microsoft finally learned to implement the successful strategies of their competitors? This is what I think we will see in the near future.