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Yahoo Sued for Spyware, Typosquatting

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May 3rd 2006
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On Monday, several advertisers filed suit against Yahoo in the state of New Jersey for alleged fraud in the way the online giant distributes their contextual Overture ads. The lead plaintiff is a typical small advertiser, Crafts by Veronica. “This is a class action. It’s on behalf of all advertisers. Anyone who bought ads from Yahoo within the last several years is a part of the class,” anti-spyware guru and suit co-counsel Ben Edelman explains to ADOTAS.

The suit accuses Yahoo of displaying ads through spyware and on parked domains that advertisers assumed would be placed next to the more valuable search results. The suit comes at a moment when search advertising competitor Google received a lot of press about their revenue from parked and misspelled domain names.

The suit claims that Yahoo misleads advertisers into believing that their ads would show up next to search results. But instead, they displayed ads in spyware, which is usually not contextual, and still charged advertisers a PPC rate identical to search result ads. The suit also argues that Yahoo places ads on parked misspelled domains, and charges trademark infringement.

“Our class members deserve restitution, that is re-payment of the amount they paid Yahoo that they shouldn’t have had to pay, and they deserve protection going forward. They shouldn’t have to pay for the stuff in the future [that] they didn’t agree to,” adds Edelman.

The suit also alleges that Yahoo not only ignored the problem of click fraud, but engaged in it. According to the complaint, “…not only have Defendants turned a blind eye to abuse of their PPC advertising system, but Defendants knowingly have manipulated that system for their own benefit, by increasing the volume of improper advertising displays during financial reporting periods when Defendants were at risk of failing to meet investor expectations.”



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Reader Comments.

Hello there!
This article comes as just-in-time savior when out web address http://www.xponsewebs.com is facing the same problem. For last few weeks we were charged for irrelevant clicks from same websites. This continued even after we tried all the options from content match categories to others so that the ‘false’ clickings could be blocked. Our requests to Yahoo to lokk in to the matter went unheeded even if we provided enough to prove the miscalculations. We extend our full support to cambat the issue so that no other web identity becomes victim of this well-crafted trap and incur loss accordingly.

Thanks.

Posted by Shoma Dutt | 1:25 am on May 17, 2006.

Seaking about typosquatters, here is a free website that detects whether your site has been typosquattered

http://veralab.com/dnsdomainsearch/typosquatters.jsp

Here is what you need to do:

1. Type your company domain name into the input field below
2. Choose the root domain from the drop down list below
3. Choose the types of typos you want to be investigated
4. Click “Search” and wait for a while

The system will generate the list of possible typos and misprints and tell you whether any domain names using these typos are already taken by other people.

Provided by IBCI Law Group, a law firm specializing on copyright and trademark issues.

Posted by mkvakin | 4:10 pm on June 24, 2006.

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