When signing up for a Citysearch business account, merchants will receive a free, custom, professionally shot and edited 60-90 second video vignette of their business that is featured on their Citysearch profile page. Citysearch is also giving customers the ability to embed their video in their own website.

“Video is a powerful online tool for local businesses giving them the unique opportunity to share their story while allowing users to experience the ambiance of the business and establish a connection prior to visiting,” said Jay Herratti, CEO of Citysearch. “Citysearch has found that local advertisers experience a high click through rate on their videos, demonstrating increased user engagement. Citysearch is excited to be fostering this high value connection between consumers and our local merchants.”

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The suit comes from a man who says he bought an ad with the site, then began to see its clicks suddenly start to climb when he tried to cancel it. He claims Citysearch promotes the fraud by having a click-based commission for its salespeople. He also says the site does not try to stop the practice and does not help users who have been targeted.

“Citysearch.com is defrauding its advertising customers of millions of dollars by not only turning a blind eye to click fraud, but in fact encouraging it as well,” the law firm representing the man, Kabateck Brown Kellner, said in a prepared statement.

That same law firm has won similar cases against Yahoo and Google, gaining multimillion dollar settlements two years ago.

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