Mar 10, 2006, 3:46 GMT
San Francisco - Google will pay up to 90 million dollars to settle claims that it billed advertisers for ads that were subjected to 'click fraud,' the Internet search company said Thursday.
The lawsuit filed last year against Google and other search engines threw a spotlight on the ruse in which repeated clicking on ads paid per click generated false sales leads, driving up costs for advertisers while increasing revenues for websites.
Unscrupulous competitors are also believed to use click fraud, which Google chief executive Eric Schmidt recently described as 'the biggest threat' to the internet economy.
To settle the claim by retailer Lane's Gifts and Collectibles and other plaintiffs, Google said it would offer advertising credits worth up to 90 million dollars in return for clicks that are suspected to be fraudulent.
Yahoo, which was also sued, said it would continue to contest the lawsuit and expressed confidence in its 'proprietary click protection' to combat fraud.
In its first five quarters as a public company, Google has reported more than 7 billion dollars in revenue - 95 per cent of which comes from pay-per-click ads.
Your Talkback on this Story