It could be good news, it could be bad news. After years of the general attitude of "it's not that bad," the major search engines seem to be acknowledging that click fraud DOES pose a thread to search engine marketing and that they need to be proactive in finding ways to deal with it.

Cnet's Elinor Mills talks about how the major engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask for starters) are joining with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the nonprofit Media Rating Council to form the Click Measurement Working Group.

The aim of the group is to put together some guidelines on what actually constitutes fraud, how those clicks should be identified and how both search engines and advertisers should deal with fraud. With Google having just settled a major click fraud lawsuit and announcing plans to be more transparent about how many fraudulent clicks they are filters and Yahoo! settling a smaller click fraud case, the move is sure to spark some talk throughout the online advertising world.

From the eCommerce Times:

In addition to definitions and guidelines, the working group will establish a process for auditing ad campaigns to ensure companies are getting what they pay for.

The group will work with the Media Rating Council, an independent group that monitors advertising, on the guidelines. Council Executive Director George Ivie said the group's formation should help ad agencies and marketing firms "feel assured that the interactive industry is striving for increased reliability and consistency through the guideline-setting process and through their support for audits."