MINNEAPOLIS, July 18, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) and Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FIC) today announced plans to collaborate on a significant research study on click fraud and click quality in pay-per-click advertising (PPC advertising).
SEMPO, a non-profit professional association working to increase awareness and promote the value of search engine marketing worldwide, and Fair Isaac, the leading global provider of analytics and decision management technology, will be co-sponsoring the study, which Fair Isaac launched in March. The study will use artificial intelligence methods to determine the extent of click fraud in PPC advertising and develop a solution for the search engine industry.
Fair Isaac's fraud and identity theft detection solutions are known worldwide for their effectiveness in helping businesses across industries cut fraud losses and protect their customers from fraudulent transactions. Fair Isaac's Falcon One(tm) suite of interlinking enterprise fraud solutions enables businesses to improve their protection across channels and business lines leveraging the company's market-leading Falcon(tm) technology, which has been successfully used to fight payment card fraud for 15 years.
Fair Isaac scientists believe the anti-fraud technology used to protect 450 million active payment cards worldwide may also help in differentiating between Internet advertising "clicks" that are genuine expressions of human interest and those that are not.
SEMPO Chair Gord Hotchkiss said, "Click fraud is probably the single biggest deterrent to the continued growth of search engine marketing today. As search expands into new markets, including local advertisers, marketers have to feel confident that they're getting full value for every click. It's a question of trust, and the beginning of that trust must come from a reliable assessment of the scope of the click fraud problem. No one has a better track record than Fair Isaac in identifying fraudulent patterns and eliminating them. Search engine marketing is an incredibly efficient marketplace, and will become even more so when we can more effectively control click fraud."
"Fair Isaac and SEMPO share an interest in the economic importance of properly assessing the value of Internet advertising," said Ted Crooks, Vice President of Global Fraud Solutions at Fair Isaac. "Our partnership with SEMPO is an important milestone in our research investigation into click fraud. It creates the opportunity for us to analyze a larger pool of data from a wide range of advertisers to determine the overall extent of click fraud with more precision as well as understand variations in fraud patterns with advertiser characteristics."
The planned study will analyze several mathematical methods of scoring and vetting advertising charges with emphasis on required data and the value of specific, alternative data sources. Specifically, the organizations will attempt to learn what combinations of data and sources are most important in the accurate rating of Internet advertising services. In general, the methods applied will leverage artificial intelligence by using systems that rely upon neural networks and similar techniques trained to recognize patterns through repetitive analysis of historical cases.
SEMPO members and non-member PPC advertisers will have an opportunity to contribute anonymous click stream data to this study. In exchange, they will receive meaningful analysis of their search engine advertising and potential click fraud. SEMPO Research Committee Co-Chair Kevin Lee commented, "This is an opportunity to get free insight into the click quality drivers in a campaign, and marketers should jump at the chance to participate."
About Fair Isaac
Fair Isaac (NYSE:FIC) makes decisions smarter. The company's solutions and technologies for Enterprise Decision Management give businesses the power to automate more processes, and apply more intelligence to every customer interaction. Through increasing the precision, consistency and agility of their decisions, Fair Isaac clients worldwide increase sales, build customer value, cut fraud losses, manage credit risk, reduce operational costs, meet changing compliance demands and enter new markets more profitably. Founded in 1956, Fair Isaac powers hundreds of billions of decisions per year in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, retail, consumer branded goods, healthcare and the public sector. Fair Isaac also helps millions of individuals manage their credit health through the www.myfico.com website. Visit Fair Isaac online at www.fairisaac.com or e-mail edm@fairisaac.com.
About the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO)
SEMPO is a non-profit professional association working to increase awareness and promote the value of search engine marketing worldwide. The organization represents the common interests of more than 380 companies and consultants worldwide and provides them with a voice in the marketplace. For more information, or to join the organization, please visit http://www.SEMPO.org.
The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization logo is available at http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=2228
Fair Isaac Statement Concerning forward-looking Information
Except for historical information contained herein, the statements contained in this press release that relate to Fair Isaac, including statements regarding its Falcon One and Falcon product offerings, and the benefits to be derived from these offerings, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including any unforeseen technical difficulties related to the implementation, use and functionality of the offerings, the risks that customers will not perceive material benefits from the offerings, failure of the products to deliver the expected results, the possibility of errors or defects in the offerings, regulatory changes applicable to the use of consumer credit and other data, and other risks described from time to time in Fair Isaac's SEC reports, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2005, and its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2006. Forward-looking statements should be considered with caution. If any of these risks or uncertainties materializes or any of these assumptions proves incorrect, Fair Isaac's results could differ materially from Fair Isaac's expectations in these statements. Fair Isaac disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.
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