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Google's Fraud Squad Battles Phantom Clicks
An anonymous reader writes "It's an open secret that low cost workers in India, China and other countries are hired to boost traffic for online ads by clicking on text links, banners etc. Internet marketers facing high advertising fees on search networks like Google are becoming increasingly concerned about this form of online fraud. This problem has reached a critical stage and even Google recognizes that it has been the target of individuals and entities "using some of the most advanced spam techniques for years". A Google spokesperson said the company has "applied what we have learned with search to the click fraud problem and employed a dedicated team and proprietary technology to analyse clicks.""
1. Submit a story about the fraud website to /.. Thanks to the lame lameness filter, it makes its way as news. *ducks*
/.ers click on the link.
2. Zillions of
3. Profit!
Okay, agreed that the fraud website goes down for a while....
Simple, just block out all those clicks from the same companies in India and China, etc. There has got to be an obvious pattern in there somewhere that is easily discernible.
mongering unprecedented evile et AL.
run look that up?
see also: goo-goo as yet another wall street of deceit execrable, #FUDging monIEsuck? (tell 'em about that won robbIE?)
see also: va lairIE/robbIE's fauxking pateNTdead PostBlock censorship devise as whoreabully infactdead?
all is not lost?
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... rebalancing the 'field' since/until forever. see you there?
had dealt with this phantom menace instead of the other one.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
What they really means is "Microsoft can't have it for MSN! Nyah nyah!"
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
phewww. in search of.... even more monIE?
into the ever widening cesspool of wall street of deceit.
lookout bullow.
Actually, this is a great deal of what botnets are designed to do. There are legitimate sounding spamming institutions out there that hire shady botnet herders for their spam services. These institutions will approach mom and pop businesses or small companies and offer to promote their website.
/. effect which makes the mom and pop operation think they are getting a great deal out of the marketing. They must be generating a lot of traffic if their web host is saying so!
After using the botnet herder to generate and send out tens of thousands of spam messages, they can then also simulate traffic to the poor webhost, giving a minor
And the spamming institution tries to sell them more on it. If no one is buying, they'll use the "well, maybe there's something about your product that makes it hard to sell online!" and offer to remedy whatever issue they agree needs fixed to improve sales.
Meanwhile the botnet herder uses a couple of his "phat" college and corporate connections to do file trading on IRC. If you get rid of spamming, you're also getting rid of other underground warez and movie outlets. To some people, the only reason why they don't actively hunt down spammers is for two reasons:
1) It's a kid, usually no older than 16. No one wants to be responsible for ruining his life.
2) That same kid is responsible for the following: my Spiderman 2 DVD I had the weekend after it came out, The King Arthur DVD I had the same weekend it came out, and the DVD-quality DVD of Chronicles of Riddick I had a week after it was in the theater.
I am capable of it, but if I'm not getting paid to do it: why hunt these kids down? Why bite the hand that feeds me?
Why are you raising your children with the dated values of Christianity? Get into the 21st century, and leave the 13th century behind. The sexual liberation of children is not far away, and better to be on the cutting edge, than be the 2006 equivalent of Ward Cleaver.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!