The Internet's leading search engines are teaming up 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 Wednesday 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 their profits. Combined, the three companies control 86 percent of the lucrative U.S. search engine market, according to comScore Media Metrix.

Two smaller search engines, InterActiveCorp.'s Ask.com and LookSmart Ltd., also have joined the alliance along with the Media Rating Council, a nonprofit group formed 42 years ago at the urging of Congress to help track and validate the sizes of advertising audiences.

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articleArchive/aug2006/clickfraudteam.php

So maybe the law suits and, more importantly, advertiser's voice frustrations have actually had an impact on click fraud. This is probably a good move, especially if it moves towards 3rd party auditing. However, one has to question the reasoning in leaving advertisers out of this 'team'. Time will tell if the engines can work together and if they can be productive.