Yahoo! Class Action Suit - Settlement - Accounced

[GoPC]

As a member of Yahoo! Search Marketing, I was shocked and surprised to receive a Class Action Suit Settlement notification today penned buy the Attorneys of CheckMate Strategic Group of Florida.

Looks like CheckMate is trying to put the BlitzGrieg on Yahoo! and get in on the Big Money game of suing for a living.

Read the Notice of Checkmate vs. Yahoo! Class Action Settlement here.

This will contine to undermine the Pay Per Click Industry, eventually killing it. It's like trying to hurd Cats.... more

The WORST part is that "Although Yahoo! does not believe it has done anything wrong and continues to deny all claims and allegations of wrongdoing asserted in the Action, Plaintiff and Yahoo! agreed to enter into a settlement agreement..." the coucil for the plaintif "intend to request $4,950,000 in attorneys' fees plus costs in an amount not to exceed $25,000."

5 Million to say NOBODY DID ANYTHING WRONG but WE NEED TO FIND WAYS TO MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T HAPPEN.

5 Million!!!!

How long, at .05 cents a click, will it take for Yahoo to make that up? I guess WE take it in the shorts, so what's it to Yahoo?

5 Million... Cripes.

Not again....

GoPC

 

[movingconcierge]

I just got this...crazy.

 

[avalon426]

Overly exagerated.... Yahoo! will have no problem with this settlement... and there will not be any ripple effects in the domain industry.... I am not exagerating when I say it's only $5 million dollars..... you do the math

 

[bbakes25]

I got this email tonight. I read it as "$4,950,000 in attorneys' fees " means thats what the attornys charges for the case will be. And then a settlement. Maybe I read it wrong? Or I didn't read it all, because I never did advertising with Yahoo, just have an account

 

[btrader]

are you guys member of a class-action? please provide details.

 

[GoPC]

Read the actual Lawsuit Information HERE

It lays out all the details and how to participate if you are able.

GoPC

 

[broke-r]

Just received this today-I'm in Greece.

What I haven't understand though is that DO I HAVE to respond to them even if I have decided to exclude myself from the class?

Please advise... Thank you. :tu:

 

[GoPC]

If you are NOT participating, DO NOTHING. Only reply if you WANT to participate.

GoPC

 

[RogueWriter]

I received a written notice of a class action lawsuit in the mail, but I tossed it, sheeesh, I figure suits like that are just feeding the lawyers.

I suppose the overall affect of this will be to force the large search engines to ensure quality hits in some manner, which means they will eventually have to find ways to pass that reduced profit on to the advertisers, through increased fees, or decreased % for affiliates, etc.

If they focussed like this on the 2nd tier PPC engines, it might, actually, drive a lot of baddies underground.

Personally, though, I would not participate, I'd rather keep a low profile.

 

[GoPC]

I agree... no participation on my part. There may be some gold diggers out there that want their pound of flesh but in the end, that 10 Plus Million Dollars is going to have to come from SOMEWHERE and it won't be the advertisers... it'll be from the Publishers. They snake another 10% (or more) off the top of our already declining CPC and the more NEWS about this "issue" the less Advertisers have faith in the program. Consequently, the less Advertisers will participate and little compeition means LESS bids per click. Assume that means that Google and YPN will then need to take MORE once again to satisfy the debt and keep the shareholdes happy. So bend over a little farther Publishers, "we need to go a bit deeper".

No acutually, the solution is VERY simple and would be a POSITIVE spin for the Advertisers... ALLOW PUBLISHERS TO CLICK THEIR OWN LINKS.

What? Yeah, just note the ID of the Publisher and attach a "no pay" code. Then, it could be said, that the Publishers are getting traffic for FREE.

Think about it, how many of us are there? How many people have sites that are their own, built, because they are interested and knowledgable about the content and subject? As such, wouldn't it make sense that if they are intersted in what they are developing and an interestesting ad, in their line of interest, appears... they should be able to click it? Aren't they, after all, the PERFECT customer? Someone engaged and involved in the subject matter?

Isn't it WRONG to deny the Advertiser access to such a perfect potential customer? And if there are ONE, there are MANY. Millions of Adsens and YPN users out there, every day, customers NOT looking at the message the advertiser is sending.

If there was a need for a lawsuit, THAT would be it... Advertisers suing Google and YPN for RESTRICTING customers... Millions of them.

Adsense & YPN have the ability (and actually do) to track and record each and every visitor and their searches, ads, etc. They routinely hand this over to the authorities who then review your search and ad history to identify behavioral patters.

It could be argued that if they CAN but are NOT putting forth such an effort, this is willful negligence on their part and they are responsible for the Millions of Dollars worth of lost exposure and sales.

If the advertisers were getting MORE than what they paid for, any hypothetical competition based ubber-clicking or other creative ways to take advantage of the system could and would certainly be offset by the positive advantages. At the very least, heavy offsite traffic would be easily identified and controlled, making the security of the entire process more evident and less "mysterious".

In the end, that is what's killing them in these suits... with all the technology and ability locked up in the walls of these search engine empires, they are CHOOSING not to implement such a simple and effective managment system. They opt to settle rather than FIX the problem.

The REAL question here... the REAL story... is WHY?

What are they hiding that is worth paying Tens of Millions of Dollars to hide and not fix?

GoPC

 

[vokkerzen]

You have to advertise to be part of it?

 

[GoPC]

You do. Or did anyway

Hard pressed to do so now and then get in.

GoPC

 

[.X.]

I received a written notice of a class action lawsuit in the mail, but I tossed it, sheeesh, I figure suits like that are just feeding the lawyers.

I suppose the overall affect of this will be to force the large search engines to ensure quality hits in some manner, which means they will eventually have to find ways to pass that reduced profit on to the advertisers, through increased fees, or decreased % for affiliates, etc.

If they focussed like this on the 2nd tier PPC engines, it might, actually, drive a lot of baddies underground.

Personally, though, I would not participate, I'd rather keep a low profile.

i received one to...Chunked it...The lawyers are cashing in.

 

[Traveler]

i received one to...Chunked it...The lawyers are cashing in.

I totally agree.

 

[SpareDomains]

mine wen't through the paper shredder a few days ago