Google, Microsoft and Yahoo Collaborate for IAB U.K. Search Help Site

The Interactive Advertising Bureau U.K. has launched its dedicated Search Help Centre, offering advice to marketers on best practices, policy and legal regulation regarding search marketing.

Content for the site is supplied by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, alongside a panel of agencies and advertisers from the IAB U.K.’s Search Council.

The free resource is intended to provide regularly updated information on issues surrounding trademarks, copyright, invalid clicks, click fraud, user privacy, and intellectual property. It will also include help and advice for advertisers on how to go about hiring a search agency.

Intellectual property will form a key focus for the center. An IAB U.K. release issued today read, “Protecting intellectual property is a growing area of concern because it has become extremely valuable, therefore marketers need to understand what campaign property they own and how to protect it.”

Jack Wallington, chair of the IAB Search Council told me, “For advertisers this is important because they may not be aware of the increasing value of [intellectual property] in search marketing and how to handle and protect it. For agencies it will become a larger issue because they need to decide exactly what they are willing to share with each other and their clients – what is and isn’t competitive information for instance.”

He added that the IAB now recommends making intellectual property a key consideration when starting a relationship with an agency.

The Help Centre resource goes live today.