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Search Companies Team Up Against Click Fraud
isabotage3 writes to tell us that the top three search companies, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, have teamed up to create an alliance to combat click fraud. The fact that these three bitter rivals can team up shows just how serious the industry has become about preserving the current online advertising boom that is currently underway. From the article: "Click fraud has attracted an increasing amount of attention amid class-action lawsuits and industry studies asserting advertisers have been collectively overcharged by more than $1 billion for bogus sales leads during the past four years. Google and Yahoo contend that those estimates are gross exaggerations generated by opportunistic lawyers and online advertising consultants hoping to cash in on the anxieties triggered by their calculations."
...or you could simply check if the visitor clicked a few times (and purchased the item or not), or clicked a billion times.
47 pages. Looks like someone is trying to justify his cultural studies degree.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
Can work together even though there's no love lost between them. Slashdot on the other hand has to persist with its juvenile logos.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
If you read the article, one of the things they say is how hard it is to determine the "intent" of the person clicking the ad. Are they serious shoppers, casual browsers, or even one of those teenagers who sign up for those click-for-profit type schemes. Well duh! Of course you can never know this. To me it's all quite silly. The point of online advertising is the same as the point of any other advertising medium - drive up sales (or, notoriety). And that information is readily available to the client companies. They know what their ad budget is and they know what their sales are (and polls tell them what their notioriety is). In the end they should have enough data to make their own determinations as to how valuable online ads are to them, and then they should pay accordingly. I know this is all easier said than done when the prefered pricing model seems to be click-based. But, at some point the numbers should tell the story, and if it means the online ads aren't worth what they are costing, then spend they should reallocate their ad dollars elsewhere. Eventually the pricing will align with value.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
advertisers have been collectively overcharged by more than $1 billion for bogus sales leads during the past four years.
Then maybe those advertisers should think before they agree to be advertised on those get a free ipod sites. I mean seriously who doesn't cancel those agreements as soon as you sign up for them. I wouldn't pay these people a nickle if I was an advertiser, yet they make enough to cover the cost of free ipods or free laptops even.
The best way to stop click fraud is to stop using the system.
The more I know, the less I know
Vigorously defending their irrational actions and behavior while loudly denegrating and disparaging their critics over evidence any sane, straight, clean and sober observer would immediately recognize.
Owning up to the issue honestly would be the better approach than demonstrating your desparation by denying it.
Is profit an addictve substance for corporations?
If so, maybe it sould be outlawed. Like herion is.
You mean the people who are constantly looking for ways to ruin my browsing experience with a never-ending parade of Flash ads, pop-up windows and gigantic CSS floating DIVs might be getting overcharged? Excuse me for not feeling sorry for them. Now where's that World's Smallest Violin?