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Spyware Still Cheating Merchants
Jamie found an interesting story about how Spyware is still on the move. It talks about how Spyware vendors are trying to clean up their image, but still doing fishy things. It breaks down several common types of spyware and some analysis of each.
Sometimes when cleaning out a relative's totally infested PC, I think that most average computer users are so bovine in their approach to spyware, that they really don't mind all the automatic installation that goes on, as long as it doesn't interfere with the "just works" experience. In my experience, there's very little of the outrage that we feel about this stuff. It's frustrating really.
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Don't forget the reverse is true as well: Google has to trust your company to only use the Google checkout. Phone, mail, email... There's plenty of opportunity to turn that customer away from Google's checkout without doing anything shady such as only sending 2/3 to Google and the other 1/3 to something else.
There are also plenty of people that aren't interested in Google's checkout at all, and would refuse this.
If there was a simple answer, this problem would not have existed for so long.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Part of the problem is that online advertising has for a long time essentially been one gigantic circle-jerk, and in these cases, the original advertisers end up cleaning up the mess. Companies pay other companies to source advertising, who pay other affiliate networks and other websites a pittance to carry the advertising. There are enough middle men to make one's head spin. The original advertisers end up having no idea who they're dealing with.
Less outsourcing, and contracts that demand less second-degree outsourcing, would help the advertisers tremendously. I doubt that it would do much for the spyware victims, though, because there'll always be another scam right around the corner.
I think google is aware of the problem and is taking a blind-eye to it. It makes sense in a way: if they put in more checks to deter clickfraud their revenue would be decimated. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but you can basically hand wave "advertising charges" away from people. Case-in-point, several people who are advertising affiliates for google have had large sums of $$$ that was due for payout frozen by google(http://forums.digitalpoint.com/). If this was isolated, I would discount it as maybe a few people were doing something shady google did not like. But when respected members that have been in the advertising business a long time start have their payouts frozen because they get into the thousands of dollars, I start wondering....
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