Search companies, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask.com, LookSmart and others, have announced plans to work together with two industry groups to quantify click fraud. The group will be called “The Click Measurement Working Group”.

“The newly formed group will “ensure that marketers of all sizes are provided the highest possible level of transparency around pay-per-click advertising,” John Slade, senior director of Yahoo Clickthrough Protection, said in a statement. Slade also said the guidelines “will be a game-changing step in measuring and fighting click fraud.”

A step in the right direction. It was probably a case of do this, or face regulation at some point in the future.