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Google Sues Click Inflators
Rollie Hawk writes "As is the case with any pay-per-click (PPC) advertising service, Google AdSense is vulnerable to click inflation, where the per-click values of ads go down thanks to excessive clicking. What is different this time is that it is not greedy webmasters clicking ads on their own site but rather the advertisers themselves. In a lawsuit filed last year, Google alleges that Auctions Expert used hired hands and automation to generate high numbers of ad clicks that resulted in $50,000 in revenues. This was done with two goals in mind: forcing wasted advertising expenses on competitors and inflating their own click values, lowering advertising costs. Industry insiders claim that Google AdSense and other PPC advertising providers are undermanned and therefore don't catch many of the estimated 20% fraudulent clicks. It certainly seems that some heuristic software could help reign-in some of these activities, yet Google seems to do a large amount of this work by hand. Often criticized for its policies of non-disclosure for many of its online services, Google claims the secrecy is justified in the case of not giving advertisers details on fraudulent clicking. They say the last thing they want to do is provide a 'road map' to would-be frauders."
that pay-per-click is practically WORTHLESS.
Why don't the advertisers think of soething more effective... like pay-per-mail or something?
The guys from Google used to be my heroes.
Anybody else notice the rapid crapification of Google since the IPO?
Time for a new crop of rebellious start-ups, I think.
And you don't feel the slightest twinge of guilt for not turning in your "buddies". That money they got was not rightfully theirs, you know. People got laid off and suffered because of scammers like your friends.
Your website isn't very popular if you were only getting "a couple hundred" off Google ads. Alternatively, perhaps your content was too bland to get well targetted ads. My contract with google prohibits me from releasing the exact details, but suffice it to say that my tiny little website (alexa rank over half a million) receives more than a couple hundred dollars every month.
It's funny how it takes ages for mainstream press to see things that are as obvious as the nose on someone's face.