Yahoo has sparked controversy in the search engine marketing world by taking control of search advertising campaigns… without advertisers consent.
Included in new ‘terms and conditions’ of their Search Marketing program, Yahoo! have given themselves the right to change ads and keywords of their advertisers.
Here is the wording of the new provision:
Sponsored Search 3. OPTIMIZATION. In the U.S. only, for those advertisers not bound by an Insertion Order, we may help you optimize your account(s). Accordingly, you expressly agree that we may also: (i) create ads, (ii) add and/or remove keywords, and/or (iii) optimize your account(s). We will notify you via email of such changes made to your account(s), and can also include a spreadsheet of such changes upon your written request.
I’m baffled by Yahoo!’s move here. It’s pretty safe to say that they are struggling at the moment in the paid search arena, so to force advertisers into a corner by not giving them full control over their own campaigns is wrong. I can see Google rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the new campaigns they are likely to pick up from disgruntled ex-Yahoo! advertisers.
I think Andy Beal from Marketing Pilgrim sums it up perfectly…
How is this legal? Forget legal, how is this fair?
Feel free to let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
Tags: Advertising, EMail, Google, HTML, Keywords, Legal, Yahoo!
4 users commented in " Yahoo!’s New Controversial Advertising Terms and Conditions "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackTwo thoughts come to mind: is this an act of desperation on Yahoo’s part. There is also the bold assumption by Yahoo that they know advertising best. Which I surely doubt. Would you give yellowpages or the newspaper the right to change your ads? No Way.
John
http://www.DirectMarketResults.com
This does not technically say they will implement the changes. Could it be that they make them as suggestions that you can accept or reject? Why would they make people angry by pushing changes to them instead of saying “We are helping you by optimizing things so go ahead and accept them so your account will run more efficiently”? Who wouldn’t want their suggestions? This is why they mention insertion orders. I am on insertion orders and they ask me if they can help all the time but I still have to approve their changes.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t have to be fair… it’s their program and they can do what they want with it. If we don’t like it, we can (and will) take our business elsewhere.
Some companies are just so short sighted… it’s baffling at times.
Jonathan
–
http://www.ToolTrainer.com
http://www.LPGen.com
just confirms my suspicions that there are some really dumb people employed in senior positions of big companies
no small business owner would dream of pulling something like this with his customers – they know what would happen
Yahoo was dumb to reject the MSN takover – now it’s being even dumber by handing some of its customers to the top dog – Google
Yahoo deserves its fate – to be taken over by Google at a knock down price and killed off to lessen Google’s competition
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