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India's Secret Army Of Online Ad 'Clickers'

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the just-one-more-popup dept.

TI-99/4A's RULE writes "Just when I thought I'd heard everything, I just read that, according to The Times of India, there are hordes of people in India clicking pay per click ads for a share of the CPC earnings. Have we gone back to the dotcom boom days again where people are tossing money away on stuff like this? Or is this just a temporary blip, with paid-per action sites like CurrentCodes representing more of a norm in online marketing?"

28 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. Darn Outsourcing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I had to hire my Ad-Clicking replacement today!

    1. Re:Darn Outsourcing! by filtur · · Score: 5, Funny

      You think that's bad, I spent 2 months training my Ad-Clicking replacment!

  2. All in a days work in India by erick99 · · Score: 5, Funny
    After a hard day of handling Dell's support calls or writing code for a Fortune 500 firm, the ever- intrepid worker from India troops home to click on overseas (read:American) ads for just a few more bucks before heading off to bed...

    Happy Trails!

    Erick

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
    1. Re:All in a days work in India by Blaubart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is it me, or isn't this one of those jobs that could further be outsourced, to um, I don't know, a script maybe?

    2. Re:All in a days work in India by Uber+Banker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not really. The beauty of doing it from home is the clicks are distributed, the greatness of using people is their inherant unpredictability - they will click through. COmpanies that pay-per-click use sophisticated analysis to work out what is a script (and happily withhold payment if they think one is being used) - if you work out a truely undpredictable script that is intuitive enough to click through or face 'challenges' deliberately put in ads, and implement this on a wide range of IPs then you will have made millions and broken internet advertising as we know it!

  3. Outsourced? by Gadzuko · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now where in America did those jobs come from?

    1. Re:Outsourced? by KDan · · Score: 5, Funny

      Poor bastards must be on the streets now, holding signs: "My ad-clicking revenue went to india - please help - will click ads for food".

      Daniel

      --
      Carpe Diem
  4. Do they actually sit there clicking? by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they aren't smart enough to write a little script to do it for them, I'm less worried about my job being offshored.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    1. Re:Do they actually sit there clicking? by The+Lynxpro · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "If they aren't smart enough to write a little script to do it for them, I'm less worried about my job being offshored."

      Did you consider it might be cheaper to hire people to click the ads than to contract a company to write such a script? Its kinda like how the American military often threw up their arms after destroying various Vietnamese infrastructure during that conflict. They'd blow up a bridge, only to find it reconstructed a few days labor thanks to what the Pentagon defined as "ant labor." The Western business-minded viewpoint would factor in contracts, heavy industry, materials, and all the like into costs, whereas a more simple society would just get a ton of unskilled workers out there to assemble the project (instead of relying on earth moving equipment). Or maybe a better example would be the Minnonites and the Amish in terms of barn raisings.

      --
      "Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
    2. Re:Do they actually sit there clicking? by dcrocha · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Back in 2000, a friend of mine used to leave his computer turned on 24/7 with that stupid AllAdvantages software showing up lots of ads. He expected to make hundreds of dollars, as advertised.

      After 4 months of extreme adclicking, he received a U$35,00 and was not very happy about the amount, but decided to cash it anyway. We are from Brazil, so when we need to cache a check from US, we need to go to Citibank. There, they charged him U$70,00 to cash the check. I had the biggest laugh of my life and he thought about a lawsuit AllAdvantages, but I told him that the lawyers would charge him a lot more than the money he wanted to receive.

  5. make rupees fast! by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    Why, type in 'earn rupees clicking ads' in Google? you get 25,000 results.

    Swell, even AllAdvantage.com is outsourcing.

    Yeah, I know their gone

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  6. Great! by Illuminati+Member · · Score: 5, Funny

    When I thought I was onto something I find my job is, once again, outsourced to India!!!
    Perhaps I should work on plan B, clicking spam links to boost spammers confidence.

    --
    Yeah, I'm a Republican AND a geek. It is possible.
  7. Its a sad day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    When even punching the monkey gets outsourced.

    1. Re:Its a sad day by goldspider · · Score: 5, Funny
      Let's not be hasty here.

      I for one know that 'punching the monkey' is still very much a domestic function performed at the goldspider household.

      --
      "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
    2. Re:Its a sad day by Fez · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I earned about $250 worth of certificates from FreeRide.com, most of which were Amazon or CDNow certificates. Pretty much everyone in my office did it, we were that bored. It was how we started each morning.

      Of course toward the end it got worse and worse, but they never did fix some security 'problems' that would let you get multiple clicks per ad. The system was setup to only allow you ~10 ad clicks per day in the main section, but depending on how fast a person could click, you could get from 2-50 + clicks registered off the right banners, preferably 10-point ones. You could get a $20 cert in a matter of days.

      Of course that's probably why they went under... I still don't get how they really made money in the first place. I doubt they ever turned anything resembling a profit.

      /Still wishing I hadn't used my real e-mail address to sign up for FreeRide...

  8. People are always ready to toss money on ads by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ever buy the Sunday paper? First thing you do is dump the 8 pounds of glossy color ads in the nearest garbage can. Everyone knows this, but the advertisers still line up every week to pay for their ads to end up in a landfill.

    The same is true with internet ads...They have to pay by click or view or something. There isn't any way around it, that's how all adds are sold.

    At least we've finally outsourced a crappy job.

    --
    ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    1. Re:People are always ready to toss money on ads by clichekiller · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My wife is one of those coupon clippers, she manages to save about $30.00 a month for maybe an hours work total. That's not bad.

      Hell I even go through the techie adds, Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, et. al. to see if they have any good deals for the week. I've picked up many a computer game for $30 bucks that's retailling at the other outlets for $40 or more. So don't discount the sunday paper.

      --
      Sir, there is a dragon outside with an armful of armor. He's inquiring if we offer free refills.
  9. In India... by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps in India people are cheaper than a script sufficeintly sophisticated to slip thru the "Click Protection" of PPC advertisers.

    Mind you Overtures' Click Protection leaves a lot to desired.

  10. Cue Simpsons by tcopeland · · Score: 5, Funny
    Lisa: Shouldn't you be working?
    Homer: I've got someone to cover for me.
    [Camera shows drinking bird repeatedly pressing 'Y' on the keyboard.]
    Thanks to SNPP.
    --
    The Army reading list
  11. Clicking? Bah! by flashbang · · Score: 5, Funny

    I just forward that email from Microsoft and AOL, I'm told that I'll get tons of money very soon.. Silly people actually clicking on ads for money..

    --
    My sig left me for a younger user id.
  12. How silly! by thebra · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can see it now.. "Well Jim it appears most people interseted in buying *insert product* are from India. Let's focus our advertising there."

  13. Back in the boom days... by ElGuapoGolf · · Score: 5, Interesting


    My old company, MarketSource, used to run this website called Ontap.com, which was billed as "the place where college students live online". (Yeah, I know that if you go there now it's a liquor distributor or somesuch, which is actually closer to what college students actually do, but I digress..)

    Anyhow, the management had this notion that they could pay for everything with online advertising. Who wouldn't want to run ads aimed at the very lucrative college crowd? And we were paid per ad impression!

    Of course, the money coming in wasn't as much as was hoped for by management. Trouble was, nobody was visiting the site. So someone came up with the bright idea of refreshing ads every 30 seconds or so. Which also led to the plea from management to "leave your computer on 24/7 with your browser opened to our site". Kinda like using a thimble to bail out the Titanic, but hey....

    This also led to discussion where management would say things like, "We need to make X new feature as complicated as possible... instead of doing it in 3 pages, let's do it in 7 cos then we'll serve more ads".

    The only good thing that ever came out of that site was the fact we sent a famous midget (Verne Troyer) off to some 17 year old girl's prom. I hope he didn't hump her like he did the laser in APII.

    1. Re:Back in the boom days... by Spoing · · Score: 5, Funny
      1. This also led to discussion where management would say things like, "We need to make X new feature as complicated as possible... instead of doing it in 3 pages, let's do it in 7 cos then we'll serve more ads".

      I'm curious. What is it like working at Tom's Hardware these days?

      --
      A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
  14. As an Indian, I tell you... by bluenote39 · · Score: 5, Informative

    You should be wary of anything Times of India reports. Once a premier newspaper, it has reduced to a tabloid and semi porn website now.

    Case in point, assuming you get paid $0.25 per click as the article reports, that amounts to $180 an hour (assuming you click 1 ad per 5 seconds)!! Thats insane, even by american standards. In India where a average guy gets $300 a month salary, that figure is damn near impossible.

  15. Been wanting to say this for days.... by AvantLegion · · Score: 5, Funny
    When I thought I was onto something I find my job is, once again, outsourced to India!!!

    DEY TOOK AHR JAHBS!!

  16. Re:Darn MMORPGs! by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny
    > You think that's bad, I spent 2 months building a robot and then 2 months training it to be my Ad-Clicking replacement!

    You think that's bad? I spent $49.99 plus $15/month for a subscription to Star Wars Galaxies and Evercrack. And that's on top of the $1.00/day I pay the Indians to mindlessly click the mouse button and grind out the characters and camp the spawns for the gold I sell on eBay.

    Ah, I love the 'net and how it lets anyone out the middleman! I mean, by using banner ads, I can cut out 90% of my cost overhead by doing away with the MMORPG part of the business plan altogether. Stupid MMORPGs!

  17. This is almost as senseless as a Wired article by finnhart · · Score: 5, Informative

    Can no one else smell the BS? This is almost as stupid as when Wired's "jargonwatch" claimed that people all over the US were saying "jithead".

    Who is paying 25 cents per click? With programmers at WiPro earning, say, $1000 US per month .. that's just 4,000 clicks, or 150 per day. Right.

    The article's claim that searching for earn rupees clicking ads returns 25,000 results is off by a factor of 10.

    And, finally, it's "CPM", not "CPC".

  18. Re:Darn Identity Thieves! by plover · · Score: 5, Funny
    "A girl robot!

    This is going to be the best prom ever!"

    --
    John