Slashdot Mirror
Google Battles Fraudulent Clicks
hthb writes "Google admits on CNN Money that fraudulent clicks are becoming a very large problem for them. 'A top Google official said that growing abuse of the company's lucrative sponsored ad-search model jeopardizes the popular Internet search engine's business. "I think something has to be done about this really, really quickly, because I think, potentially, it threatens our business model," Google Chief Financial Officer George Reyes said Wednesday.'" We had an earlier story about attempted extortion.
How about ending the advertising? I wouldn't miss it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
As much as I like Google, I have a hard time feeling sorry for them on this one. What did they expect?
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
i click my google ads all the time. is that considered fradulent? hell, no one else is gonna click an ad.
Nope, Second Post
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Google needs to not just police fraudulent clicks, but their own counting system. My dad tried their system to promote a fledgling e-commerce site for his wife's business. In two weeks, they reported about 400 clicks. Thing is, his web host reported only about 300 hits on his home page. This is not how many clicks from Google were in his referrer log. This was total traffic from all sources.
He complained and Google gave him this totally bogus, highly-technical explanation about referrer logs and that he may not be able to accurately track how many visitors were coming from them. Since he's a busy lawyer and the time it would take to fight Google for maybe $60-100 would take way more time than it was worth, he just quit using Google.
But you can't even attribute this to fraudulent clicks. Even if Google was his sole source of traffic (which it wasn't), nearly 25% of the clicks they were reporting and billing for weren't reaching his site. And this is based solely on comparing clicks to the number of successful server requests for his homepage.
I've used the same host he has and their downtime isn't even 0.25%, much less 25%.
Draw your own conclusions, but I think even if Google eradicated fraudulent clicks, their ad program would still be a huge scam.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Bring back the 'search by date', and we promise to behave ourselves =)
Google decides they'll pay people based on clicks, and people realize that all they've got to do is click the link to get paid.
This was OBVIOUSLY going to happen. Anyone remember AllAdvantage? If you pay someone to do a job that's so easily automated, you can BET someone's going to automate it and ask for all your money.
The solution is simple. STOP PAYING for clicked links! If your business model sucks and is inherently flawed, CHANGE IT. Don't bitch that you're getting taken advantage of.
"Doctor, it hurts when I do this..."
"THEN DON'T DO THAT!"
Seriously. I have been a google fan for a long time, like most slashdotters, but this press release just makes me sad. This may officially be the first Truly Stupid statement I've heard from the people of Google.
I'm choosing to see this as a sign that the end times are near. There are still plenty of smart people at google, but someone started letting idiots in, too.
The method used could be as simple as a security code in forms like most fourm sites and email hosts do when creating accounts. Of course there is always increasing labor. I wouldn't mind surfing all day long to see if ads placed are legitimate web sites. (besides all the spyware and slightly distasteful popups that could go against corporate internet usage policies.(I'm sure they could make an exception since google pulls up a lot of those pornographic based sites depending on your search)
So, it would be wrong for us to try to /. the University of Pheonix ad?
yeah! I wouldn't want bogus results on my pr0n searches!
-Teiresias
Well, part of it is because their click-throughs are just so lucrative. I mean, I'll click on an AdSense link of my friend's with every new IP I use. (i.e. wherever I go) That's just a few cents a click, but it really adds up.
However, we've yet to see just how aggressively the adjustment affects the amount he's getting paid. We'll see.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
On the one hand, the companies are paying for "clicks". Unless the contract is explicit about what constitutes a "click", it sounds like they're paying for clicks. And what the heck is a "fraudulent click"? I mean, how do you fake a click?
...when individuals click on ad links that appear next to search results in order to force advertisers to pay for the clicks.
well, this may be one way of looking at it, but I think that most people performing "click fraud" simply click the ads to support the site they are currently browsing. Don't wanna donate to suprnova? just click their ads.
He complained and Google gave him this totally bogus, highly-technical explanation about referrer logs and that he may not be able to accurately track how many visitors were coming from them. Since he's a busy lawyer and the time it would take to fight Google for maybe $60-100 would take way more time than it was worth, he just quit using Google.
With him being a lawyer, I have a hard time working up any sympathy for him being confused by a highly technical explanation.
Reyes, speaking at an investor conference sponsored by Credit Suisse First Boston, was referring to an illegal practice known as "click fraud" that occurs when individuals click on ad links that appear next to search results in order to force advertisers to pay for the clicks.
I have trouble understanding how this is "illegal". Certainly unethical, but that's not the same thing.
I mean, as an advertiser, you enter into an agreement that you will use this "pay-per-click" model to promote your product. Obviously, this can be tampered with by having someone click your link non-stop. But what constitutes "too many" clicks? If I'm a small business, I can be hurt by even a fraction of clicks that some of the larger corporations can get.
I can see how Google has to take some steps to prevent people from doing this. I can also see how advertisers have to be more aware of this problem. But how exactly is it "illegal" for me to, say, repeatedly click on a link? The people who sponsored that link -- who agreed that they would sell their product via "pay per click" -- knew this and went ahead with it anyway. Can I be indicted for fraud charges for clicking 1,000,000 times? How about 100,000? How about 1,000? Or 100?
Unethical, but why illegal?
*chuckle*
I like Google just the way it is. Fraudulant clicks are tantamount to a wee bit of shoplifting. If it goes on enough, all of us will end up paying eventually. It's sometimes tempting to think of stealing from the cookie jar, but what kind of jollies are these dudes getting from false clicking?
What? It is possible to fraudulently click on a link? Come on, I can click on whatever I want for whatever reason I want - that's the point of the web, there is nothing that says I can only ask for an HTTP resource if I am interested in buying something - there's no FRAUD there. Sorry google, but calling it "Fraud" is just FUD.
This lamenting about their ineffective and easily-exploited business model sounds very similar to the whining we all love to hate by certain media industry groups, doesn't it?
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
It's an easy fix... pay per unique visit, per time period that you care to filter by. In other words, the same person clicking 1 time per minute's no good,but up to 2 times per day is worth money to me. I agree that pay-per-click sounds like it's doing exactly what it should -- paying for EVERY CLICK. What the hell is a fradulent click? It sounds like they should be caring more about Unique visitors up to a certain number of visits per day, or sales, etc.
stuff |
*click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click*
What was the story? I wasn't paying attention
Microsoft has ordered over ten million new mice and trackballs for their central offices.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
...click fraud
If this were true, why would all the suckers still be purchasing their stock, driving share prices to $180? That is an insane price!
However, I do have to hand it to Google to be the first stock in a few years to create it's own 'internet bubble' and cash in on the timing.
Per Inquery or Per Order are really the only ways to sell advertising on the net. The big guy doesn't get ripped off, and the little guy doesn't get run over.
The problem is the amount of labor it takes to track this. There has to be a way for both the advertiser and the advertising firm to track the sales and or actual product inqueries, in a manner that both can trust.
*Smiles as he views business possibilities*
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
Actually there is no problem: A company can easily determine how many click-throughs from Google eventually lead to sales, and thus assign a dollar value to their presence in Google. Now they divide this total value by the number of click-throughs reported by Google (even if said number is totally bogus) and that is exactly what they bid for in adwords.
The CFO is just not familiar enough with the basic economic behaviour.
click click click click click
©2004 Google
Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, in my view, always seemed to be more a fad anyways.
... an example can be seen here:
... many advertisers, in particular larger ones it seems, recognize the value of impression advertising and branding.
Impression based advertising, or even better yet a hybrid of flat-rate advertising priced based on an estimated, not guaranteed, number of impressions expected during a particular period of time, such over the course of a month.
Prime example of this type of pricing scheme is seen with traditional magazine advertising. I personally have been using a similar pricing setup for years for various on-line services I operate
Marihemp Network Ad Pricing Info:
http://www.marihemp.com/advertising/
Long time visitors to the Marihemp Network sites know clicking on ads is pointless *unless* they truly are interested in the product/service advertised, and advertisers know upfront what their costs are - don't have to worry about their ads ending prematurely nor unexpected ad cost overruns.
And from an operational standpoint, selling flatrate advertising, as explained above, is much easier to manage both now, as well as well into the future.
On a related item, even if a visitor is interested in a specific product/service, that doesn't mean the visitor is ready to buy right then and there
Ron Bennett
How about ending the advertising? I wouldn't miss it.
Yes, this is a good idea. To replace it they should have a button that says "Get Free Pizza". And when you click on it, then someone will deliver free pizza to your address within 10 minutes.
How about ending the advertising? I wouldn't miss it.
There are a huge number of (non-commercial) sites out there that depend on adsense to keep running, generally speaking it is at least possible to cover server costs alone for a reasonably high traffic site with adsense.
This is why personally I've never understood why people run things like 'Adblock' to block out all adverts (other than in the case of annoying pop-unders etc) - these adverts are most likely what pay for the site you are viewing.
I think that Google AdSense (if that's what they're talking about) is worth protecting... it is a lucrative system. I think that Google is being fair with their payout to advertisers -- personally their statistics look consistent to me; 4000 page views at my site versus the 3000 page views acknowledged through Google (not everyone has javascript enabled). Also the revenue I've collected from Google has been superior to other ad systems.
I think Google is fair to its ad publishers.
Well Google has all these geniuses they keep hiring from MIT, I'm sure they can fix up a way to detect likely click abuses. It's not rocket science, after all.
I don't get it.
I think if they only allow 1 click per IP to count (during a time period, like 1 click per IP per week or something), then most ad-users would not be able to significantly increase their revenues without insert a "fake-click" mechanism in a virus or spyware of some sort.
And Google can keep track of any ad-user that tries to pull this by cooperating with antivirus software makers: if a fake click for company X is found in a virus, just cut company X from the program. It's not perfect, but it's better than what they already have.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
It's an easy fix... pay per unique visit, per time period that you care to filter by.
Right. And how do you propose to track unique visits. By IP address? Then what about the AOL proxy caches? Also, a large percentage of these are probably robots. They can play all sort of tricks with cookies.
This is a difficult problem.
The only time this hurts google is through their adsd on other websites. Say a scammer puts google ads on his website, then automates clicking on those ads, google then has to pay him for a portion of each click. This hurts google obviously.
Ads on google.com only hurt the advertiser, and as someone mentioned, they knew the deal when they signed up. Each click, fraudulent or not, is unlikely to become a sale.
I suspect that the proportion of fraudulent clicks used to hurt antoher company (by raising their advertising costs) is small compared to the number of scammers trying to make money by hosting google ads. I don't know the proportion of revenue google makes onsite vs. ads hosted on other site, but it would seem off-site ads may have to be stopped until a better business model can be figured out.
Spencer Ogden
Unique can be determined 2 ways:
- via a cookie
- via the IP address + browser agent
The cookie can be easily deleted from the client. The second can be faked using proxies and rewriting the browser agent.
Its a difficult problem to solve.
Additionally, despite what others here say - this model is here to stay. PPC advertising is the backbone of Google's success. They're not going to just drop it because of fraud problems.
OK, I should really post this as AC... so I will :S
I did some consultancy work for a company who at the end of the term decided they didn't want to use my work. the work in question took the best part of a month and was constantly hindered by one of their PHB's getting all busy deciding he knew a lot about web design.
The company also didn't want to pay for my work and said that they would only pay 50% as it wasn't being used.
OK, I should have gotten formal contracts written up, but at the time I couldnt afford the legal fees.
So what do I do now. Everytime I remember, I click on their adwords, knowing they are paying $20 per click. OK, I dont end up any better off, but it feels good knowing I will cost the company more than they ripped me off for.
Personally, whenever I've find myself bored, waiting for something to compile I generally load up google and do some searches for "uk tv", "uk electronics" etc...
My most hated companies "Dixons", "Comet" and "PC World" (all fuckin' awful sellers of over-priced shite - just like BestBuy, judging from US Slashdot posts) always pop-up as sponsored links, which I delight in clicking and then removing a few seconds later.
The same principle behind the anti-spam uses of hashcash could be used here. Google throws some javascript into the page, that calculates a hashcash stamp and add it to the requested URL whenever an ad link is clicked. URLs without a stamp are considered fraudulent and ignored. Javascript runs on the client side, so you take a few milliseconds or a second of their processing time. Barely noticeable to a person actually clicking the link, but it will put a dent in someone who's trying to perform thousands or millions of clicks per hour.
I personally run www.bannerboxes.com and we have had the same problem. The way we solved it was by upping our filters and creating a crap of them.
When we first started we had ALOT a fraudlent clicks getting through, now with out filters in place we are catching 98% of them. I'm about to implement one more filter that will most likely totally eliminate this all together.
The problem that Google will see, that we have seen, is that people will stop using their system. The only thing a webmaster is concerned with is their bottom line (how much money they make). When didn't have that good of filters, the average webmaster was making about $10 a day. Now they make about $1 a day because of all the bad clicks we are able to filter out.
If Google think that click fraud is a problem, wait until the combat click pools! These are webmaster that sign up and then email their friends to go to their site and click on the ads. This is almost is possible to detect. We've caught some people because of them posting in the site forums or directly or their website.
People will always try to cheat any system, even if it is a popular company, like Google. What could possibly be done to enforce legitimate clicking.
Maybe Google could find a way to tie into their advertiser's sales databases, so they could know who is paying and who is preying.
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
Was anyone else surprised by the statistic that 98% of Google's revenue comes out of the so-called "paid search" business? No wonder they are getting scared and saying stupid things now. They're no longer primarily a search company at all, their core business is now advertising. Amazing how people still ascribe value to their "do no evil" mantra.
Offtopic? I thought that was funny as hell. Microsoft trying to make trouble for Google by clicking on all their ads, so they can crush them and dominate the search industry. What's not funny about that?
> It's an easy fix... pay per unique visit, per time period that you care to filter by.
I think if you read their terms for the program, they are already doing this.
they knew the deal when they signed up
No we didn't.
When we signed up payment was impression based.
It got changed later.
Sure, we could have just cancelled our contracts, but then how to earn a living?
I think I've posted this story like 5 times now on Slashdot, usually every time a story like this comes around. I guess I'll tell it one more time.
:-/
I made a program to make fraudulent clicks for a customer who was being attacked by a fradulent company. The company created a similiar looking domain name and just ripped his entire site and put it on there.
He was going through lawyers to stop this guy but it was taking a long time. He saw that the guy was advertising on google (right above him). So I created a program that got a list of anonymous proxies from a site, then it would randomly choose a proxy, then pick a random interval, and a random referrer (from a list), and a random browser tag. Anyway, using this program we could click on his ad-word hundreds of times a day, costing him money and making the "bad-guy" max his limit for the day.
I was actually pretty shocked that it worked, so I gave my client his money back and emailed google about it. I talked with a few people at google including a higher level technical guy. I described my method and he thanked me, and I've never heard from him again.
Moral of the story... none really, but I don't think these fraudulent clicks can be stopped. This is another case of a company who's business model is pretty much destroyed because of the anonymity of the internet.
I need a new story to tell
-- D3X
...but I don't want to do anything that really upsets Google. So, if everyone here could simply visit my site, find a link to something are interested in and click it I would be very grateful. Does this count as automation?
Thanks :oD
Yes, I have sold my soul to Satan and I didn't get much for it
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Reyes ... was referring to an illegal practice known as "click fraud"
I've been scared straight now! I had a vision of sitting in a prison cell surrounded by hardened criminals. In the vision, Big Jim leers over and asks me, 'so whatchya in here fer?'
I do my best to sound rough and tough, 'Click Fraud. My clicks caused .0032 cents worth of accounting fraud - top that!'
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
contrast that to tv or print ads. there's no way to track how many store visits or sales as a result. you will get a vague idea, but not as accurately as the web tracking...
it's a novel idea and with novelty comes unexpected problems. i hope google finds an effective fix.
I say so what. As an example $1 per click (assuming every click is 'real'). 1000 clicks = $1000. $0.50 per click (assuming 50% of clicks are real). 2000 clicks = $1000. You still pay the same amount for the number of "real" clicks.
I think Google may be doing this as a negotiating point, so that advertisers won't try and get lower rates.
hosting ad links provided by Google"
DUMP your google stock NOW!!!
This has been a topic in the trade magazines for months, along with the 'not googles model' problem of advertisers NOT paying commission on click through sales.
Yes, the business models are FSCK'd
Fee for click is impossible to track for uniqueness of origination. Commission on click through sales is viable only if the advertiser has some way to keep the seller honest WRT commissions. I don't see this happening anytime soon.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
2. Tell shareholders increase stock value by clicking ads on search page
3. PROFIT!!!
I mean who didn't see this coming Geez and Hs people.
That plan doesn't really jive well with things like the big AOL proxies, where millions of people appear to be a handful of IP addresses. Thus making "unique" somewhat difficult to determine.
So you're happy to enter your credit card number on Google and any sites that use AdSense adverts to fund themselves?
That's a little excessive. How about I enter my card number on Google, and any site that currently carries Google adverts instead charges my access to Google and Google agregates the bills and charges my card?
A latent existence
What about a thousand people clicking from behind the same NAT device ? What about those clicking from dhcp'ed addresses ?
Dude you are hillarious in your superiority complex. Do you really think that bunch of nerds that Google is hasn't already considered all possible pay-per-click models including yours ?
PS. Cookies I hear you say ? Yeah, well, if I am to scam Google I'd be refusing them.
it is funny as hell.
but not to a thin skinned Windows zealot trying to swat the flies away from his ox.
Meta Moderators have the last laugh.
Science of Rockets? nope, it's just getting everyone to agree to put a tracking system into there backend, which is impossible science especially with the million+1 E-commerce engines out there.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Everyone who uses adsense knows that your listing appears in the order of the amount of money you pay for each click.. Obviously driving up the click-price. Each advertiser also has a daily "limit" they set for the amount they want spent.
So. If you want your little cheapo cell-phone or whatever website to be listed at number one for only five cents, you click bomb out the listings above yours and as the guys paying $5 per click drop off and yours shows up then you have just got the top advertising spot for keywords for nothing.
By creating an admosphere of competition, a lot of the advertisers are doing this to each-other every day, all day..
This is the primary reason I stopped advertising on adsense.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
The problem is that the people committing the "fraud" are also extremely sophisticated, since, as I said, billions of dollars are on the line. Check out this article, for example, which explains one form of fraud:
You can't catch a highly distributed, highly random army of low-wage people in India and China without generally filtering out clicks from those places. But then what about ads that are highly popular in those areas (say, for the India Times?)? They get a free ride.
Bottom line is, when you involve billions of dollars in an industry that's as open to gaming as this one, you're going to get people who go to extreme lengths to defraud your system. They'll write adware that randomly distributes clicks around the globe that is indistinguishable from real traffic. They'll hire armies of underpaid workers around the globe to do it manually.
You mean when you visit certain websites and my popup blocker clicks 5 times(Meaning it blocked 5 popups) on the same add?
Fradulent? You bet!
I don't know If I have ever gone to website from a popup add. A Banner yes. But the anoyance of the popup pisses me off.
Time to pay-per-click "internet auctions" thru google, and sue google and ebay in 6 months when my fledgling internet auction site fails! :p
Another point to consider is that the on-line adult industry, which collectively often finds innovative solutions to problems, has evolved from paying affiliates (sponsors) on a per click basis to other methods, such as pay per signup (pay per action) and revenue sharing.
... so far they've been able to hide the extent/absorb the cost of excess/duplicate clicks, but Google can't forever, especially in a post-IPO environment.
...
...
... or combination of IP, cookie, etc; the permutations are endless!
... what about folks, such as those with limited time, using an automated shopping script/website/applet to shop on-line vendors on their behalf.
... for example pay folks who opt-in like 1 cent one-time for each unique link they click in such emails.
... Google should be looking at alternatives, if they're not already, to PPC advertising.
In a nutshell, if the adult industry, as a whole, can't make pay per click work, why does Google think they can?
While the solution may seem simple to many folks, when one examines the issue in-depth, there's nothing simple about it
* What constitutes a "valid" click?
* What constitutes a duplicate click?
* How many clicks from a source is too many?
* How does one define a "source" of a click?
* Filter clicks based on IP, Computer, User ID, Cookie, etc?
* How does one deal with proxies, such as folks coming in on AOL?
* What is the threshold for filtering? Allow one click per IP per day?, or per hour?, etc
* Assuming a click is considered valid, is it truly valid? -getting into the issue of bots, etc.
* Are bots ok? Seems obvious they wouldn't be, but no so fast
* Is sending emails to friends (say double opt-in even) with pay per click (affiliate) links in them ok? -then further, is asking them to click on such links ok?; a growing underground web business is built around such an approach
I could go on and on
Ron Bennett
If I have a class c address I can get 255 clicks. If I make a web page about mesothelioma, those clicks are worth up to $165 per click which I'll probably see $10 to $20 of that money. Thats a lot of cash. After I burn the first class C, I'll just get another class C. Now If i have a 100 Zombie PCs sitting on internet connections with DHCP, I can get 100 click over however long their DHCP IP lease is. Personally, I don't like google adwords. It works great googles website, put allowing people to put it on their website makes very open to fraud. I know experimenting with overture ads, I recieved 0 conversions with ads on people's websites but around 10 to 20% conversion on if its displayed on the actual search results.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Why do you hate people from Utah and Germany? I was reading your journal and you have negative info in there about Suse/Novell and IF I run that thru the gbulmash worldview filter it tells me you hate Mormans, people from Utah, and people from Germany.
(See how damn stupid that sounds?)
...is all us honesty people trying to make a buck or two of adsense with our websites. I'm paying for the assholes freeride.
Please go to my Web site and click on Google Ads. It's very useful Web site. I provide information on Web hosting deals
Is there a way to accurately define a "unique visit." You can't do it my IP, since many folks come through NATing firewalls. Until the internet has some kind of standard and secure directory based authentication, this is impossible.
jfs
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
My "google" spam filter
Envision this:
- Searches 'viagra' or SomeOtherSpamKeyword.
- Continually click on their "Sponsored" links.
- ???
- Profit! (for Google)
This may eventually bankrupt spammers, right?Coderz 4 Life
SG had valid, real clicks for one of Google's ad programs. Because there were so many, Google simply didn't want to pay up. The only reason Google could give was that Nastard mentioned that there were banners above that people should click if they liked the product. They viewed this as "fraudulent clicks."
After Nastard posted the article, others submitted their stories of getting ripped off by Google:
Google Gone Bad
Google Does It Again!
Google Still Sucks
Google Ad Snatcher
Google Joins The Cause!
All you people finally tuning into the idea that Google has turned evil are just now catching on to something I've known for over a year now.
I had an interesting exchange with overture (aka Yahoo) on this very issue a while back. Their vaulted Click Protection is amaturistic at best. In fact inside the ad manager if you click on your own links to be sure they work you are charged. If you want to have a look at your competition to see what they are offering they will be charged. This is from inside their manager. For those interested see the paper that details my conversion with them.
You're talking about the ads that display when you do a Google search. If you click your links, you screw yourself.
We're talking about Google's Ad affiliate program that you can put OTHER PEOPLE'S ADS on YOUR website, which you recieve a portion of the income.
If you click those links, Google pays you.
Well, they only run a cluster of machines anyway. They could always release the code, and give us a real Free Software P2P web search engine.
What I think is bigger news, but less known is the Google Sandbox Effect. It seems that Google may be broken, because they are no longer able to calculate PageRank across 8 billion pages. They stopped doing their monthly updates earlier this year. Some people think the Sandbox Effect is a result of Google being broken, and some people think it is a tool to drive up Adwords clicks.
Commission Junction does commission based advertising. I used them for quite awhile. I still have all the stats. Well over 60,000 impressions, and not a single penny in revenue generated. That was when I went to subscriptions. I made quite a bit more that way. Then I discovered Google AdSense and I make more than I made with subscriptions.
TV advertisers don't get paid commission for sales, why should web-site owners?
If you don't like their system, think it's stupid, then there are plenty of other options to choose from. In the mean time, a few jerk offs aren't going to destroy Google's system, they're simply going to delude the value of a click. Which means more agressive advertising from publishers.
Which is why we have pop-ups and pop-unders to begin with. And pages with multiple ads on the same page, and news stories broken up between multiple pages and ads that come up between pages that you have to click past. All because of a bunch of idiot publishers who have tried to scam advertising companies over the years.
On my site I only display an ad ~60% of the time on average and never more than one ad on a page. That works for me. Impressions go way down but clicks go up.
Google was trying to play really nice and genuinly help people out. If this revenue stream goes away, I'm going back to subscriptions for a large portion of my site. It doesn't hurt me anything.
I don't like charging people. I like having a very large site that's 100% free. But I've got costs to cover.
Work Safe Porn
Anyone else notice how Slashdotters claim to be open-minded, tolerant, and scientific, and yet are rather intolerant and closed-minded and unscientific?
In the Slashdot mindset, all lawyers are evil. This is because Taco and Co. have drilled this into people's heads, and high school/college kids buy into it and form their worldview based entirely on Slashdot headlines.
"Man, you're analogy is soooo wrong. People don't choose to be black (or any other ethinic/racial minority), they however, choose to be lawyers."
True, however that wasn't his point. His point is that the attitude is uncalled for. The attitude displayed is indefensable.
One chooses to be a cop. Does that mean that all cops are suspect beaters?
One chooses to be a CEO. Does that mean that all are going to be like the heads of Enron, or Worldcom?
One chooses to be the president of the United States. Does that mean they're all going to be like Nixon, or GWB?
Prejudice is just intellectual lazyness at it's heart, because you all don't want to do the work to determine the actual truth of the matter.
He's good, he's bad, he's somewere in the middle. Ah well, shoot them all and let God sort them out.
They should have tried searching google and trying one of the many useful sponsored links!
I think that this happens because wherever people click (firsts search results or ads) the relevancy should be better on the right side, because companies who are willing to pay for every click would be more relevant than the evendor site found in the search (try any electronic gadget for example...).
Now, Google is threatened by its power, it is the reference search engine, and that mean that it has to evolve. Everyone in the community knows how to increase its page ranking: there are many books about it.
What is the counter measure to that? It appears that they tend in derefencing sites, claiming by the way that they cannot do anything against cheating in their ranking system. So what could be the real solution: a new google! I mean a new search engine with different algorithms, based on the fact that google is the leader and that sites are optimized for google ranking. This could balance google power over the internet and increase the relevancy of 2 search engines.
One of the problems that I've personally found is that Google takes a zero tolerance approach to clickthrough abuse. One of my own sites, which depended in part on the clickthrough revenue (fairly modest) was one day 'barred' from AdSense though despite communications back and forth with the AdSense team, they refused to explain their reasons for removal, nor provide any evidence or details that might have helped us identify the culprit/deal with it and/or prove our innocence.
What annoys me most of all is the fact that I cannot clear my own site's good name and reputation, despite being almost certain that the abuse (if that's what it was) must have originated outwith our own organisation.
In fairness to Google, I'm sure they have to be seen to take a hard-line on perceived offenders, but the danger is that they are also taking a hard-line on sites such as mine whose revenue stream has been cut without a fair trial or explanation.
In this instance, Google Is Not Your Friend.
Post-Adsense, I have a dim view of Google's methods at least where advertising is concerned. However, it remains the best search engine and I wish it all the best, but I was deeply disappointed in the way they refused to extend the courtesy of an explanation and failed to provide any evidence that might have helped us identify what happened and its source.
Bad Google. Bad, bad Google.
John
Sounds like a workaround, but then if you do it by time period, it needs to me structured so that the time is catered towards the business it's advertising. I take longer to browse a car store than I do a clothing store. So if I wanted to advertise through Google, then I'd like to negotiate my contract so that I'm certain a passthrough customer stayed long enough at my virtual storefront to be defined a "unique" hit.
Linux at home
Google needs to offer al least two ways for businesses to advertise. Keep the existing way as the bottom, cheapest tier of advertising. Offer another tier where the user enters a small code presented to them in an image. (The term for this escapes me for the moment.) This gives confidence to the business that a real person with at least a passing interest is submitting the code.
Then allow businesses to customize their ad. They can do either the current way or the code entry technique. The business could offer an incentive for entering a code: "Enter the code for 5% off!". The business could offer both ways for either lazy users or accessiblity reasons. Any way they choose, the business should pay much less for the current technique then the code entry way.
If they don't like the code entry method, come up with another method. The main point is to offer multiple ways for the business to present their link.
"The solution is simple. STOP PAYING for clicked links! If your business model sucks and is inherently flawed, CHANGE IT. Don't bitch that you're getting taken advantage of. "
Yeah! Don't complain when people behave according to their nature.
Gee, almost makes me glad to be part of the same species. We can't control ourselves, and have no plans to change that fact. Plus to add pain to suffering, we'll blame you for our failings. Then we'll make suggestions on the face of it that sound reasonable, but are just as suspectable to our "natures" as the first.
So here's a big bottle of Gin towards the idea of mass extinction, and hopefully our successors will do better than we ever did.
Look this really isn't such a big deal. The worst case scenario is that google cannot charge per click but has to use some other metric to determine fees, either flat, per "presentation" or some other related metric.
Why is pay per click good? Well there can be only two reasons;
(1) It lowers the legitimate threshold of entry to make affordable something that would otherwise be unaffordable. In other words by using pay per click they can offer a service to someone who would otherwise be unable to afford it
(2) It enables Google to generate extraordinary profits (ie overcharge).
If someone is happy to pay per click because there is some "perception" that a click is something inherently valuable then the fact that these clicks are becoming (or have become) less valuable is merely a correction that returns adWords to the standard advertising channels where "viewers" are the only statistical measure available. However, if the real reason that Google cares is (2) then they deserve nothing.
In fact even if clicks become valueless, there are many other metrics that Google can use that will mean they can be even more precise with their pricing model than the broadcast advertisers. Things like page views per geographical region or service provider etc etc etc.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
I recently put an ad for my jetta on google ads and watched what happened. I wondered why some days the count of clicks was on a completely different order than other days. I also worried about people clicking over and over again at around $1.50 a pop. I even caught myself almost clicking to check if the link worked. Probably not any fraud going on in my case, but I still wondered.
It seems like there should be some way to limit cost from a certain host, or somehow prevent multiple clicks. I suppose some sort of a virus could provide clicks from each infected computer, but this seems like more of an isolated problem.
Either that, or google should provide a flat rate option. I have no idea how this would work, but it would prevent pay per click fraud.
I am all for google ads. As many have posted, they are minimally intrusive, and at times I even find them useful both for advertising my own interests or finding things directly relevant to my searches.
In my teenager years, I often participated in political and party ad campaigns. This was before the age of the internet and electronic advertising. So I went out with my friends, in a minibus, to paste posters in the streets. We got paid for it. It was a very pleasant war, between youth "gangs". All you had to do was to paste as many posters over the other party's posters, or rip theirs off, to bankrupt them faster than your own party. Those who held out longest and were best organized, won. This was all very legal.
The lesson I learned was that the best strategy is to paste ("click") your competition into bankruptcy. We often succeeded in convincing rival pasters to throw away their posters ("click their own ads"), and we would then pay them part of our money.
Say a scammer puts google ads on his website, then automates clicking on those ads, google then has to pay him for a portion of each click. This hurts google obviously.
Wrong. If Google thinks the clicks are genuine and pays out, that means Google gets paid by the advertiser. Google is never paying from its own pocket - the advertiser pays out and Google takes a nice cut of the price.
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale
I still don't get it. This seems like a negative-sum game, a lose-lose situation.
Maybe the article is deliberately vague to avoid giving away how-tos?.
If I call up a pizza parlor and order fifty pizzas to be delivered to my neighbor (and the pizzas are delivered and I'm not caught, etc.) it costs my neighbor money. It actually benefits the pizza parlor. (Unless my neighbor yells enough and the pizza parlor takes back the pizzas...).
Either way, it only affects me in the subtlest of ways. With respect to _money_, and fraud is usually about money, it doesn't help me. I don't get a dime out of it.
Usually, what motivates fraud is that the fraudster _makes money_.
Sure, in the pizza parlor place if I run a competing establishment, I might hope that my neighbor will be so annoyed that he'll switch pizzerias. That's pretty darn subtle, though.
Taking money out of Google's pocket or out of Google's advertisers' pocket isn't the same as putting it _in_ the fraudster's pocket. How does the fraudster benefit financially?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Did anyone else notice the "advertising links" adjacent to the article's text? Does anyone else find this ironic?
The other thing I noticed when running the ads that I am "almost" instantaneously updated in Goggle and my ranking has increased a bit higher.
Now if YOU guys want to go there and click ads that would be great ;-) but it is an Apple/iMovie site so I should only have about 6% worth of interest from here :-(
I think they would have much better luck if they stopped their own fraudulent tatics of selling companies trademarks to their competitors. That could potentially have a much larger impact on the internet economy. Why would some company spend thousands of dollars advertising their trademark if google will just sell an ad triggered on the trademark to their competitor for 5 cents/click?
... The US Senate to announced passage of legislation that will attach a two year prision sentence to anyone caught clicking fraudulently on a Google advertising. Google, amongst other advertising mediums have stated that this type of crime cost them billions of dollars per year....
...12 year old boy from Deluth Minn. was sentence to 16 consectutive 2 year prison sentences under the new HR30972 legislation today. To be freed at the age of 44 years of age.
This all comes down to good billing and reporting to there customers. If they had a decent way of tracking the clicks they could filter out abuse cases and there customers would be blind to any abuse that could be happening. It almost seems like they don't do anything about to see if they can get away with the abuse seeing how google booasts some of the best engineers in the industry I don't see why this should be a problem.
Forcing people to watch advertisements gets close.
Making laws that forbid skipping of bypassing of ads is evil (there are plenty of better laws to make, and plenty of far crappier laws to repeal- so they should just get on with those).
Oh well, it'll be a shame if Google goes belly up, just because a bunch of people piss on their business model.
If you ask me, I think the NSA or someone like them could sponsor/start an Internet search engine, secretly or otherwise - I'm sure they _could_ do a pretty good job of it. Good way to track people if you ask me, and figure out what the various groups of people are up to and other similar info.
Plus if you do things right you can make money by figuring out what stocks the dumb sheep are going or about to go bullish on and buy em before most of the sheep do.
I doubt the NSA has a "do no evil" mantra...
Basically, Google has just discovered that "affilate banner programs" are abusable. That's not exactly news.
This doesn't really hurt Google's core search business. The worst that can happen with AdWords is that they have to pay out a refund to an unhappy customer once in a while. Their expansion into the banner ad business may be a failure, but that's no great loss.
Saw mention of a click fraud survey in google groups a couple of months ago. Did anyone follow this up? http://groups.google.com/groups?q=countrycheck.com &hl=en&lr=&selm=fd5c1516.0405110442.74da0dc2%40pos ting.google.com&rnum=3
--
Support Texas Troops use TXGoogle
And here is the first lawsuit filed by google against a company for committing click fraud.
f raud/2100-1024_3-5463243.htmlhttp://news.com.com/G oogle+gets+gruff+over+click+fraud/2100-1024_3-5463 243.html
http://news.com.com/Google+gets+gruff+over+click+
You have a good point - when do you sue for click fraud? At 100 clicks, 1,000 or 1,000,000 clicks? Click fraud is a gray issue that I believe is impossible to prevent and it will be interesting to see how this situation unfolds.
I have a right to know who is advertising on my blog. I was black and had a website that talked about being black, I would be very upset if the KKK advertised on my website. I know that is an extreme example. I also am interested in who is advertising on my site. I have a reasonable excuse for clicking my own links.
"brxref
adblock with *.googlesyndication.com/
I am having trouble understanding Google's high valuation.
People's explanations for google's reason for existance sounds more like a ponzi scheme than a business model to me.
As opposed to a site sponsored by one company, Adsnene promotes journalistic integrity. If I am running a review site, and I don't know who exactly is advertising on my site, I can't unfairly favor them.
"brxref
The click monitoring is used to provide proof that the advertisement is paying off. In other industries, this proof is not necessary. For example, its not possible to determine whether people are buying your product because of your television ad, your radio ad, your newspaper ad, or because they happened by it at the store.
So why should the rules be different for internet ads? The theoretical possibility of doing click-monitoring is alluring, but apparently it is not a practical possibility. So just let it go, and sell internet ads just like you sell any other kind of ads.
Click here or here.
Judge: Why did you click 100,000 times on the same link?
You: I have a short term memory disorder.. what was the questions again?
Anyhow, to run up his numbers, Scrooge spends several hours driving in circles over the counter.
If the Google guys had just bothered to read the comics when they were kids, they would have known about the pitfalls of paying for clicks. There are plenty of Uncle Scrooge wannabees out there.
However, a beta release of Microsoft ClickMonger 2005 Enterprise Edition (codenamed "Fubargle") is expected later in the year. The software giant plans to incorporate this technology into the next version of Windows as an always-on background service.
Define "fraudulent click"? I see an ad and I click it. How is it possible to fraud a click? The advertiser gets what he paid for: a click. The adsense-user gets paid for exactly that: the click.
;).
Maybe google should start using pay-per-view rather than click, gah
So, what was Tenet talking about, really? See http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1204/120104c1.htm.
"Efforts at physical security will not be enough, because the thinking enemy that we confront is going to school on our network vulnerabilities as well, and I think the two are inextricably linked," he said. "The number of known potential adversaries conducting research on information attacks is increasing rapidly and includes intelligence services, military organizations and nonstate entities."
According to Tenet "a loose collection of regional [terrorist] networks" now "thrive independently" worldwide by using telecommunications and the Internet to communicate with and learn from each other at almost no cost.
Telecommunications technology for government and business should have built-in protections, Tenet said, such as intrusion detection and protection systems, antivirus software, authentication and identify management services, and encryption.
"I know that these actions would be controversial in this age where we still think the Internet is a free and open society with no control or accountability," he added. "But, ultimately, the Wild West must give way to governance and control."
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
They already do that. The problem is that you can gather a list of say 2,000 proxies and really go to town with it.
Natural Selection: self-destruction of the poor and lazy
Not illegal whatsoever. You can be assured Google is counting unique hits, which means unless your IP has changed, clicking on it a million times won't do a thing. Maybe google simply has to improve its tracking technology. Or maybe they are referring to some advertisers forcing people to click on the links without them even knowing it (through various server side scripting and javascript scripts). They should be able to tell how many times a certain website has shown the ad, and how many people have clicked on it. Why can't they avoid this through proper tracking systems like the rest of the advertising world on the Internet?
There are 10 types of people in the world; those who can read binary, and those who can't.
it's been taking longer and longer each month to get my google adsense checks in the mail.
They must be spending more and more postprocessing time verifying the legitimacy of clicks. You can sorta see how they do the processing in different chunks of "approval" if you watch the payment section of your adsense account.
One thing that can be frustrating to an adsense publisher is clickthroughs where a well meaning visitor/user of a site clicks on every ad as a gesture to support your site, but it's viewed as fraudulent activity and you lose your cut of the payout for those clickthroughs. (note I haven't seen that happen first hand, I'm just saying, it's a plausible problem of false positives on fraud patrol...)
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Alright, It's a little complex, but not too much.
Problem: proxies
Solution: Google has enough power that they could easily actively scan for open proxies
Problem: Competitor clicks multiple times using his/her browser on the ad.
Solution: Check the IP address, use a cookie, check the referrer. Only charge ONCE for multiple clicks. This alone may save many advertisers.
Problem:User uses multiple referred URLS.
Solution: Verify that the ad WAS placed on that page.
Problem: user deletes cookies using an automated program.
Solution: check the IP address. Verify the referred URL
Problem: Google isn't currently doing jack for advertisers
Solution: As an advertiser check your logs. Verify that your clicks are ligitimate interested users. (i.e. cookies, javascript code which records time spent at the website, number of impression from AdSense and search results vs. number of ligitimate users.)
I have a website which provides a free service to the community (alumni website). Almost every legitimate user who clicks on the Ad registers for the service. This site is only for one school and as a result, I had very few clicks per impression for Adsense ads, but incredibly high click per impressions for search results. I have incredibly targeted ads. One day I noticed that my clicks from adsense had gone up alot, but my user registration did not go up proportionately. As a result, I discontinued my adsense ads and only used search related ads. Lesson learned, AdSense may not be all its cracked up to be.
There's no place like ~/
Easy fix for Google,
Insert a CAPTCHA between the AdSense ad and the advertiser's site.
It will stop fraudulent clicking by 'bots but wont stop fraudulent clicking by humans. It will also drive up Google's bandwith expenses.
Anybody has a better solution than this?
fraudulent chicks?
I might go to the same purchase site 40 times in an hour to get information and decide what product to buy, then disappear because I now have to spend three weeks fighting the internal purchase order process at my company. If I come back with a signed PO and find that my IP address has been banned (or whatever), I'm likely to tear it up and go shop at the next-best competitor.
-Graham
Im just wondering how they (google) can refer to the practice as 'illegal'. Fraudalent OK (also mentioned in the article), but illegal - in what world?
Having nothing better to do (why else would I be reading slashdot in the middle of the day in the first place?) im off to click some ads. Might be fun for a half dozen seconds.
Ads on google.com only hurt the advertiser
In the short run, maybe, but in the long run google cannot succeed if the advertiser is constantly being hurt.
I suspect that the proportion of fraudulent clicks used to hurt antoher company (by raising their advertising costs) is small compared to the number of scammers trying to make money by hosting google ads.
I dunno, the article suggests otherwise. And the reasoning, as given by other slashdotters, makes sense. The fraudulent clicks aren't so much about raising the other company's advertising costs, but about running them out of advertising money so that your ads go to the top.
I don't know the proportion of revenue google makes onsite vs. ads hosted on other site, but it would seem off-site ads may have to be stopped until a better business model can be figured out.
I really think this is a much simpler problem to solve. Sure, you can use anonymous proxies and you can use lots of IP addresses and you can come up with all kinds of schemes, but once this gets discovered (and it's bound to happen if more than a tiny percentage of the clicks are fraudulent), you can just cancel the contract. When it's a matter of competitors though you don't know which competitor is making the fraudulent clicks, so you don't know whose contract to cancel.
What about a Log-in system. Wouldn't this solve it? If users had to log into Google, then google can filter out multiple clicks from unique logged in users..
For those who don't read the article: 1) you put up a website about some subject 2) you call Google and have them serve ads on your site. Everytime someone clicks an ad on your site, Google charges the advertiser and gives you a portion of it. 3) You offshore the work (armies of offshore IT people who's job is to just click on your ads) ...
4) Profit!
This can be serious business. In the life insurance industry it costs $7-$20 per click to advertise! It's possible if your site is showing life insurance ads (for example - I'm familiar with these ads) that Google might be passing you a dollar or two for every click. Not too tough to figure out a way to make $20 an hour is it? Just get 10 clicks an hour.
There are plenty of advertisers spending $100K per month on these ads. $20K per month in fraud charges is serious business.
That being said, I don't see Google kicking back a lot of those fraudulent fees. I and my customers have probably spent $100-$200K+ on Google and I've seen back $100 in money back as a result.
Life Insurance in Canada
Show of hands? Who glanced at the article title and thought "Google is battling fradulent chicks?! HAWT!"
[o]_O
So if a company like Micro$oft buys google ads, then if a whole boatload of people search google for microsoft, google gets a huge check from Bill G.
If the
Except that _YOUR_ NAT has a different IP address from everyone else's NAT (at least in terms of the IP address that is globally visible). All it would really mean is that all the computers within your home would appear to the system as only one.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
What about a Log-in system. Wouldn't this solve it? If users had to log into Google, then google can filter out multiple clicks from unique logged in users..
So I'm going to have to log into google to view google ads on third party sites? And the benefit to me is what, exactly? Not to mention the fact that adding a login system to google would be ridiculously resource-expensive (doable, sure, but it wouldn't come cheap in terms of engineering or cpu/network resource costs).
Advertising is not meant to be a direct sales tool, entirely.
Until the internet, the only way to track sales through marketing was offering a promotion like 10% off coupons printed in a newspaper. Advertising serves the purpose of brand awareness.
Charging only for sales due to advertising is like giving away the chicken but keeping the eggs.
Who pays google how much is only part of the equation. Many sites run google ads because it provides good return. If google made less, they would pay out less and people would start dropping their ads. In turn, they would generate less sales, get less, pay less... you get the point.
The solution must be a way to confidently identify fraudulent clicks.
Hate is hate, no matter how you try to justify it.
"Hate" is also a VERB! It is not a noun. You can correctly express your idea this way:
"Hating is hating, no matter how you try to justify it."
Also:
"Hatred is hatred, no matter how you try to justify it."
I just hate it when people butcher the English language. Especially educated people who should know better.
Isn't that really google's search engine?
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/03/1 450243
I can tell you that we have to pay roughly $10 per lead.
These leads are only people who have clicked on our ad, visited our website, and submitted a request for information. All of the clicks that don't submit an info request get factored into our $10/lead figure.
http://www.LubeDepot.com is the site if you are wondering and we are setting up Amsoil synthetic oil accounts...
Libertas in infinitum
EXACTLY!
Small bizs in this country are not interested in general promotion because it is not cost effective. Not to mention that it is always a hit or miss with your intended target audience.
This is where the idea of direct marketing comes into play!
Libertas in infinitum
It is REAL tempting to go over to our competitors ads and just sit there and click them over and over and over again. Since I hold myself to high moral standards I wouldn't ever do that sort of thing - especially since it could just as eaisly be done to us!
The problem they are saying here is that it is VERY VERY VERY easy for competitors who are unethical to attempt to screw the competition in a very big way! Google doesn't want click wars between competitors because obviously that would leave a very foul taste in their clients' mouths.
Libertas in infinitum
I think that the pay per click scheme is internally flawed. It was open to misuse and contention right from the time it was introduced. A better method would be for the advertiser to track which request came from Google link and then pay according to the amount of transaction it fetched. However, it would require some sort of feedback mechanism for Google too as there would be no way for Google to bill their advertisers.
All that's needed is for Google to move from a click-based model to a time based model. Advertisers can just pay to have their ad listed for an amount of time and no click fraud/extortion can occur. Problem solved.-- Next!
There's definitely the potential for problems for advertisers, particularly on what Google refers to as the "Content" network. I.e. the ads placed on 3rd party websites. Since those website owners directly benefit from clicks on any and all ads on their site, it's quite tempting to get people to make fraudulent clicks. Wasn't there an article on Wired.com a couple months ago about clicking-sweatshops in India who specialize in doing just this?
Realizing this, on my Adwords campaigns, I put a very tight limit on the price and the daily limit for the "Content" network. The "Search" ads are a lot safer, the only potential problem with those ads is with competitors clicking on your ads to run-up your marketing costs.
FWIW: I suspect that some site(s) made a bunch of fraudulent clicks for one of my adwords campaigns today - way more clicks than ever before, and a marginal net gain in traffic to the site. Fortunately, I don't play with big bucks, so doesn't really hurt.
All the computers sitting behind web proxies at major corporations too.
The problem is advertisers micro-managing, and companies bending over for them, and saying yes to whatever they want, lest they loose one single sale. And advertisers are gaming the system to their own advantage at the same time...
Websites need to tell advertisers that they will get location X on the page for Y cents per ad-loaded. Then, it needs to be entirely up to the adveriser to decide if that's the right audience for their product, and make it their own responsibility to come up with an attractive ad.
With the per-click model, cheats like eBay post numerous ads on Google even for non-sense (eg. "Shop for Moore's Law on eBay!"). Since few people are stupid enough to click on the ad, eBay gets their name in a key area, they push out other more appropriate ads, they make the site worse for the viewer, and they don't have to pay anything for it. If they had to pay per-ad-loaded, they would be more careful where they put their ads, and make their ads more enticing.
Paying for only those that subscribe after clicking-through is equally as bad. If some telco has an add, DSL for $9/mo., then you click through to find-out it's a terrible deal in reality, you aren't going to sign-up, which means the site you came from doesn't get any money, through no fault of it's own, and the telco gets their own billboard, practically for free.
Something needs to change.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
While there certainly are many computers sitting behind web proxies, in general tracking each and every one separately should not be a concern to anyone _outside_ that organization, so if all the computers within one company appear to one website as one-ip, it only records one visit, so what? In general there won't be enough distinct visitors from within a single NAT'ted domain to a single specific foreign website to have any significant impact on marketing, which is what tracking the visits by IP is for in the first place.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I work at a company using a proxy and which has many thousands of employees (larger than the population size of small towns). Are you suggesting that there aren't common sets of web sites that many of them visit?
It also sucks when a site like Slashdot assumes that we're all the same user to restrict posting.