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Google Sued Over Click Fraud

Posted by Zonk on from the clicky-click dept.

tanveer1979 writes "A seller of online marketing tools has sued Google over click fraud, accusing it of failing to protect clients from spurious clicks over web ads. The suit claims damages of $5 million and is seeking class action status. Sites get money per click from the advertisers. Rival companies of the advertiser may employ people to repeatedly click on the advertisers link on Google costing them large amount of money. Google denied the allegations. From the article: 'We believe the suit is without merit and we will defend ourselves against it vigorously.'" Interesting turnaround.

2 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Failing to prevent? by surprise_audit · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Does Sears actually do any business in a country more sue-happy than America?? Come to think of it, *is* there a country more sue-happy than America??

  2. Most of you dont get it! by new-black-hand · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    Microsoft buying Claria has nothing to do with Gator. What they are after is Gain, which is a Claria product. The reason why? Might have something to do with Gain being the most advanced targeted advertising system on earth. Think about it, Microsoft want to extend MSN and have it compete with Google. The main Google attraction at the moment is the advertising model, you get specific ads, and retailers can tailer their ads to only the users who want to see them. For Microsoft to get here, they can either try to re-produce such a system themselves, or go and buy the *best* system for targeted advertising that exists at the moment, so they go to Claria! The net result is that MSN offers extremely targeted advertising, much better than what Google can offer, which increases the value of the ads meaning less ads are required! Quiet the opposite of the scenarios being discussed here thus far. From the Gain site:
    GAIN Network advertising programs can generate click-through rates 20 to 40 times higher than traditional banner ads, because through GAIN, advertisers can reach consumers across the Web, at exactly the right time in their buying cycle.
    Taking into account buying cycles for ads? Unheard of anywhere else (many other features such as this that Google currently can not match). The one disadvantage that Gain does have is that it installes software (smileys, free screensavers etc.) that are used to collect the information to tailor the ads. What Microsoft will have to do instead is use their MSN services (Hotmail, MSN messenger etc.) to get this data from the users. By extending the collection of data across the whole MSN install base, the value of reaching this network for advertises is orders of magnitude larger than anything else.