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False Ad Clicks Cost Google 1 Billion Dollars A Year

Meshach writes "There is an interesting story at CBC which claims that Google loses one billion dollars per year to fraudulent ad clicks. The article contains an interesting description how how the company determines if a click is false. 'The company explained that it determines which clicks are invalid through a three-stage system. Most of the illegitimate clicks are automatically detected analyzed and filtered out in the first stage ... The second part uses automatic and manual analysis of the AdSense network to weed out false clicks before they are logged to an advertiser's account.'"

233 comments

  1. Ledgerlines by suso · · Score: 2, Interesting

    See, it all works out because they make it up from the interest on the money that they don't have to pay out to adwords accounts that aren't over $100. Kinda like how a bank makes money.

    Actually there was some other article I read recently about how much Google probably makes off of that, but I can't find it now.

    1. Re:Ledgerlines by moderatorrater · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Assuming that each account has $99.99, and that Google can get a 10% interest rate with that money (they may have to pay out on it, after all, so they've got to keep it close to liquid), it would require 100 million such accounts. Somehow, I'm doubting that they make that much off of it.

    2. Re:Ledgerlines by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 2, Funny

      it would require 100 million such accounts. Somehow, I'm doubting that they make that much off of it.
      Did you see Office Space or Superman 3? Yeah, it's like that. They take all the fractions of a cent and keep it for themselves.
    3. Re:Ledgerlines by ajs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm often confused by why people think that there's some mystery cash floating around in Google's (or any other online advertiser's) pocket. There's an obvious need, when payments are tiny, to limit the frequency of transactions so that aggregation can happen. However, it's not like your Google AdSense account is a money market account with cash sitting in it, gathering interest. Google simply has a line-item in their budget for payables that cannot be issued yet because the transaction fees on cutting someone a check for $0.03 cost them more than the payment itself.

    4. Re:Ledgerlines by Rolgar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Banks only have to keep 10-12% of the funds available for withdrawal. The rest is invested/loaned out to make money.

    5. Re:Ledgerlines by ichigo+2.0 · · Score: 1

      No, banks make money by lending out more money than they have.

    6. Re:Ledgerlines by DrSkwid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      People probably have that idea because every $0.01 of every click in your unpaid Adsense account was paid for, up front, by the advertisers, with real money.

      --
      There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
    7. Re:Ledgerlines by jsight · · Score: 1

      This would be true if they were only paying out at some small # (like the $10 that amazon uses for their affiliate program). But they are taking the money up front and then only paying out at $100.

      I have to imagine that there are a good many accounts out there that either never reach $100, or only reach it over large periods. I'd think they could make decent money on that "float".

      There's nothing unethical about it at all, of course. If you want lower payout amounts, just use a different service.

    8. Re:Ledgerlines by micheas · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, it's called Google's profit. Why that should be of interest to anyone else, including their advertising customers, is not obvious.


      Well, if you are depending on your advertising distributor for your business, you would want your advertising distributor to be profitable, so that they don't disappear into bankruptcy.

      A profitable business is one that you might be able to sue and get money out of. If they are not profitable, and they steal your money, you may have no recourse as the money may not be there to recover.

      Hope that clears up why someone might care if the people they are doing business with are profitable or not.

      Personally I am not concerned if the bike shop I patronize is profitable, however if I made my living with bikes, (racing, courier service, etc.) I would care about the profitability of the bike shop I did business with.

      Hope that makes sense.
    9. Re:Ledgerlines by tompaulco · · Score: 3, Informative

      Hmm, well, they seem to not want to pay me until I have $100 balance in adsense, but they are perfectly happy to bill me every month when I owe them $6.03 for adwords.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    10. Re:Ledgerlines by Hal_Porter · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, no. Everyone knows that profitable businesses only make money by exploitation of the proletariat. In a true socialist society like North Korea there'd be no advertising, businesses, internet or food and thus no exploitation.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    11. Re:Ledgerlines by Per+Abrahamsen · · Score: 1

      > People probably have that idea because every $0.01 of every click in your unpaid Adsense account
      > was paid for, up front, by the advertisers, with real money.

      That must be incredible expensive in transaction fees.

      If I were to design the system, I'd require the advertisers to pre-pay for a fixed number of clicks, so there would only be one external transaction. With such a design each click would simply move money from one Google account to another, neither of which would likely pay any interest.

    12. Re:Ledgerlines by DrSkwid · · Score: 1

      Er, well done. I htink you misunderstood. I meant every cent in your Adsense account is real money already in Google's coffers, the system does work as you suggest. You commit to spending $x and once that's gone you drop out of contention for ad rotation.

      --
      There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
    13. Re:Ledgerlines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the relavance of that to the post you're replying to is what, exactly?

    14. Re:Ledgerlines by ajs · · Score: 1

      People probably have that idea because every $0.01 of every click in your unpaid Adsense account was paid for, up front, by the advertisers, with real money. Take an accounting class or two, and you'll quickly learn that events that seem to be related to the layman have absolutely no connection in the world of balance sheets. One event you mention is a credit. One is a debit. The money you get from Google has nothing to do with the money that they get from their customers. You are a vendor that provides clicks. You get paid when your bill comes due (the end of the month that your account is equal to or in excess of $100). That your account has also generated revenue makes it a vendor relationship worth keeping, but that's as far as you can draw the dotted line.
    15. Re:Ledgerlines by toleraen · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, that's the jar. I'm talking about the tray, the pennies for google!

    16. Re:Ledgerlines by encoderer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Somehow, I'm doubting that they make that much off of it."

      Well, "that much" is subjective, wouldn't you say?

      Your point is that for GOOG to make ONE BILLION a year, they'd have to have 100MM accounts with $99.99 in them.

      Not at all likely, for obvious reasons.

      However, wouldn't you think that, oh, ONE HUNDRED MILLION would surpass "not that much"?

      If so, they'd only need 20MM users with an average of $50 in the account.

      That's still not all that likely, but it's certainly doable. And we're talking $275,000 a day in revenue (well, cap gains to be specific) for absolutely NOTHING in return.

      And I don't get your point about needing to keep the amount "close to liquid." Do you think they create a special little box for each users money and when it hits $100 they take the money out of the box and send it out? That's just silly. Much like a bank, they'd keep, MAYBE, 10% of the cash in liquid assets. But really, I don't see why they'd need ANY of it liquid. When a check is written, it can come out of their "general fund." Just because it's coded into the AdSense GL account doesn't mean it would have to come out of a segregated bank account.

    17. Re:Ledgerlines by moderatorrater · · Score: 1
      As you say, "that much" is subjective, and for a company which makes several billion through their business, that revenue is just a few percentage points.

      At the close of its 2006 fiscal year, the sum of all these small debts amounted to a little over US $370 million - cash that Google is able to invest but which effectively belongs to webmasters.(Source) Using those numbers, with a 10% return, you're only getting $37 million. It's not the sort of money I'll likely ever deal with, but to a company like Google, it's hardly a large revenue stream.
    18. Re:Ledgerlines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here is the prefect example of the site that has google ads http://lorlov.home.comcast.net/ and it is still under $100 balance. Who wants to click on those ads in the first place. This is example why G00Gle 'looses' revenue :)

    19. Re:Ledgerlines by DrSkwid · · Score: 1

      Except that I pay for keywords and know how that is billed and recieve payments from adsense keywords and know how that is paid.

      The assertion to which this was a response was that clicks build debt for Google, but that's not how it works. There is no fiat advertising. Google are ad brokers who take a cut of each transation.

      --
      There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
    20. Re:Ledgerlines by DECS · · Score: 1

      The money Google makes from residual amounts of BBC Prints Irresponsible Rubbish on Apple
      The BBC has joined the London tabloid press in printing a series of articles skewering Apple over invented suppositions based entirely upon misinformed speculation and some outright lies. The worst part is that the BBC is being grossly hypocritical in its misinformation campaign against Apple, because the company is up to its eyeballs in the Microsoft-encrusted scandal surrounding its proprietary, Windows-only iPlayer imbroglio.

  2. Well, that's what you get... by Mr_eX9 · · Score: 1

    This comes with the territory of running an internet advertising service. Between accidental clicks and sites which 'farm' ad revenue, you stand to lose a chunk of money.

    1. Re:Well, that's what you get... by hedwards · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What I'm curious about is what kind of information they disclose to the people that have ads on their site. If I were trying to pay for hosting with ad clicks, I'd be pissed if I was being cheated out of 10% of my clicks because google suspected that they were illegitimate without informing me that they were withholding the money.

      Yes, fraud does happen, but why should the advertisers get an undue break when its only on a small scale and not organized by the website operator? It seems awfully fishy that google seems to think that their system is that good.

      From what the article says, I suspect that is exactly what is happening if only 0.02% get reported as falsely getting through the measures, you can be pretty sure that google is cheating the website operators. Cheating them by being overly conservative in which clicks to be counted and which ones to toss as being fraudulent. It would be quite surprising to me if the majority of that percentage was a legitimate case of fraud and not a few advertisers trying to cheat the system. 0.02 is unlikely to be larger than the margin of error in their analysis.

      I remember the brief time I had one of their accounts, and it rarely worked right, the javascript was regularly broken and rarely actually showed any ads that weren't charity ads.

    2. Re:Well, that's what you get... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You still pay google for those clicks on your adwords - google just doesnt pay the adsense account they're linked with.

    3. Re:Well, that's what you get... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      IE7's link prefetching feature must cost Google a fortune too.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  3. Upside down logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's more like $1B dollars in fraud is not passed on to the advertiser. Many billions more probably are. Google isn't losing a thing.

    1. Re:Upside down logic by Original+Replica · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah, I don't think Google is hurting for $$$ right now. One share is $535.27. http://www.googlestockquote.com/ I don't think they are actually hemoraging a billion a year, it's more like they are wishing all of those clicks were valid so they would have a billion more in profit. Well in that case, I lost $250,000,000 last week because of a faulty QuickPick in the Lotto.

      --
      We are all just people.
    2. Re:Upside down logic by vrtladept · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly.

      Honestly I don't understand how they "loose" 1 Billion in ad revenue due to fraudulent clicks. In fact they don't loose anything. If the clicks were a fraud, then they weren't earned. This is the same kind of funny logic that is used to say that piracy costs billions. There some weird assumption that if this fraud click didn't happen that a legitimate click would happen. In a world with no scarcity ("selling" a click does not prevent selling another click). There is no loss due to clicks that shouldn't count.

    3. Re:Upside down logic by j79zlr · · Score: 1

      Actually since Google makes a profit on each click, it actually earns them money, not cost them money. In my fictitious example, as I know it, Google pays me as an adsense displaying webmaster $0.25 per click I generate from my site, and charges the advertiser $0.30 for that click. They then pocket the difference. Why would Google care if the clicks are fraudulent? Unless of course they are claiming that advertisers are leaving at the rate of $1 billion per year, which may be the case since I didn't RTFA.

      --
      I'm not not licking toads.
    4. Re:Upside down logic by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful
      For google, click fraud is a quality control issue. It dissuades potential advertisers from paying google for clicks because they don't know how many of those clicks are worthless.

      Saying click fraud costs google nothing is like saying bad transmissions cost Ford nothing because the customer eats it. People aren't stupid, so pretty soon things that decrease the utility of the product also hurt the market for the product.

    5. Re:Upside down logic by TheVelvetFlamebait · · Score: 1

      It's more like $1B dollars in fraud is not passed on to the advertiser
      ... who will be less inclined to deal with Google in the future. Advertisers lose and Google loses.

      Oh but wait, I forgot. Losses in probability and losses in investment aren't really losses at all, and even somehow help the party in question. *cough* RIAA trolls *cough*
      --
      You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
    6. Re:Upside down logic by Smauler · · Score: 1

      If you must be a grammar Nazi, please try to be an accurate grammar Nazi. Unless you really were try to say that Google loosed a billion. If so, why wasn't I informed?

      (I assumed you were trying to be a grammar Nazi because of your use of quotation marks. On second reading, that could be just for emphasis. Anyway, my grammar Nazi point still stands ;P)

    7. Re:Upside down logic by Kensai7 · · Score: 1

      Does it really matter if the clicks are faulty or not? I think the thread title should say "False Ad Clicks Cost Google ADVERTISERS 1 Billion Dollars A Year". Nobody can accuse Google for other users' uncalled for clicking.

      The advertisers (the companies promoting their products/services) lose afterall.

      --
      "Sum Ergo Cogito"
    8. Re:Upside down logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't understand how they "loose" it either. Lose it sure, that I follow. But loosing it just doesn't make sense. How would they tighten it if they loosed it?

    9. Re:Upside down logic by maxume · · Score: 1

      Share price and profit(or gross income) are not related in any meaningful way. Google could issue a 100:1 stock split, and then each share would be worth $5.35, without any impact on their overall financials.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    10. Re:Upside down logic by ukemike · · Score: 1

      Agreed. The only way that Google can claim they loose a billion $ due to fraudulent clicks is if they are actually spending a billion $ on checking for false clicks. I'm sure that false clicks do cost them some money, but I'd be shocked to find out that google spends a billion $ a year vetting adsense clicks.

      A more interesting statistic would be, how many fraudulent clicks get past google and are charged to the advertisers?

      --
      -- QED
    11. Re:Upside down logic by onemorechip · · Score: 1

      which may be the case since I didn't RTFA

      You should be modded Funny.

      --
      But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
    12. Re:Upside down logic by finalfantasygamer · · Score: 1

      Saying click fraud costs google nothing is like saying bad transmissions cost Ford nothing because the customer eats it. People aren't stupid, so pretty soon things that decrease the utility of the product also hurt the market for the product.

      Agreed! Like, for example, if Ford cars had a reputation for being Found On Road Dead or something people would stop buying them and Ford would go out of business!

    13. Re:Upside down logic by timeOday · · Score: 1

      Are you aware that Ford has been in crisis for the last two or three years?

  4. Bad math, bad logic. by JoelKatz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The logic behind this story is bogus. The $1 billion in money that these fraudulent clicks cost Google doesn't exist. If not for the bogus clicks, these clicks wouldn't exist.

    It's like a software company claiming that false orders cost them $10 billion dollars last year because they received an bogus order for 100,000,000 copies of a $100 product. Had they not received the bogus order, they would not be $10 billion richer.

    Duh.

    1. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by p0tat03 · · Score: 1

      Who says they're not doing an analysis of caught vs. un-caught fraudulent clicks? If they have a decently accurate percentage figure for fake clicks that manage to pass their system, then that IS money lost, since it WAS paid out.

    2. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by penp · · Score: 1

      Isn't that the same logic the RIAA uses?

      "Hey, you didn't pay me the $15 bloated price for that CD of music you downloaded. Sure, you thought it was crappy and never listen to it anymore anyway, but I want my $15!"

    3. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by ortcutt · · Score: 1

      How dumb are reporters these days? Seriously, I fear for the future of the journalism. Also, whoever at Google is making claims like this should be fired for sheer stupidity.

    4. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by Kingrames · · Score: 1

      could be worse.

      I'd hate to see a billion fraudulent chicks. ...except maybe on easter.

      --
      If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
    5. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by daeg · · Score: 2, Informative

      Google could charge for the clicks. Then they'd make that $1 billion back.

      However, they'd also stand to lose a lot of customers. Our AdWords bill is high enough for a small company, paying extra hundreds or thousands a year for fraudulent, worthless clicks would scare me the hell away from AdWords.

      Much of AdWords' value to Google is in keeping a high number of subscribers to keep the bid prices up relatively high on popular keywords. Losing popular subscribers could send prices down, costing them even more money than from losing an individual customer.

    6. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by rbanffy · · Score: 1

      "If they have a decently accurate percentage figure for fake clicks that manage to pass their system" then it's because they have a way to detect them.

      It they can't detect them, this number is, at best, a guess.

    7. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by bcc123 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ROFL. I don't see why the point of the article is so hard to grasp, but here is the explanation of the logic:

      Google discards those clicks voluntarily. If they hadn't, they could be charging the advertisers for each such click, and would be making more money.

      The logic is not bogus.

    8. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by p0tat03 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A cost-effective system might not be able to detect them, but there are ways to get a good idea about where this number may lie. 100% human-powered filtering of random clicksets? That would catch almost all fraudulent clicks, but be horrifyingly expensive to implement across the board, but by comparing results from a random human test to the machine system you can get some idea of how many you miss in the automated method.

      This is also how we figure out QA numbers in manufacturing - not every bad device that goes out will be reported for warranty or otherwise exposed, so there are alternate ways to derive a good quality index out of mfg'ed goods.

    9. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The $1 billion does exist. Remember the order didn't come from the people clicking (who have no money) but from the advertizers (who do). But it's not fradulent clicks that cost google the money, it's their own identification of these fraudulent clicks. The statement by google is accurate:

      "every percentage point of invalid clicks we throw out represents over $100 million [US per] year in potential revenue foregone,"

      It is "potential revenue" because if they hadn't done the analysis, they could have charged advertizers an extra $1+ billion dollars. The + is for whatever extra money went to the website owners (zero if they weren't paid for the false clicks, + if they were). By detecting the false clicks, google quite directly makes less revenue than if they didn't detect the false clicks. Of course the problem is that advertizers won't renew the contract if google advertizing is ineffective, or if they feel cheated. So Google is saying "we could have made $1 billion more dollars, but we are good and threw out the bad clicks instead".

      The interpretation by the writer is bogus as you say. The false clicks themselves only cost google extra work money, and whatever their reliable image is worth.

    10. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by Otter · · Score: 1

      It's much more ridiculous than that. People who warez music and movies (because, as you say, they suck and that's why it's so important to steal them!) are at least substituting for *some* purchases. No clickfraudster would be clicking on ads manually if he had gone into another line of work instead.

    11. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      But fake clicks that pass through the system are paid out by the advertiser, not Google.

      Google does not charge its advertisers for clicks it determines to be invalid. For example, if 10 out of 100 clicks were excluded Google would not charge its advertisers for the invalid clicks, cutting into the company's revenue.

      So what they are saying is that if it is an invalid click, they don't charge the AdWord owner. Right, that makes sense. Because of this they somehow lose money. Why, because they still pay the person who is displaying the advertisement? Nope, that's not the case. Infact, the persons AdSense account where the fraudulent clicks are coming from is banned.

      So is it the bandwidth and processing power that incurs this hefty bill? I doubt. I can understand that the manual analysis they talk about in TFA could add to the bill, but 1 billion dollars.

      To me, acting much like Dr. Evil, they decided to say 1 billion dollars because it sounded good.
    12. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by karmatic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, paid out, or not, makes no difference. Either way, it doesn't cost Google anything.

      Let's take a look - clicks are either legit, or aren't.

      Legit Click - Money comes from publisher (not Google), and Google gets a cut.
      Bogus Click, Caught - No money changes hands. Without said bogus click, Google makes exactly the same amount of money.
      Bogus Click, Not Caught - Money comes from publisher (not Google), and Google gets a cut (profit).

      If you look the scenarios, the only for Google to "lose" money is to mis-detect a legit click as fraudulant, as the publisher gets a legit click for free. Google, of course, minimizes this likelihood, and makes sure it's more likely to have false negatives than false positives (I spend enough on Google, and do my own metrics to know this is the case).

      Fraud costs _publishers_ money; it _makes_ Google money (up until the point when advertisers start jumping ship).

    13. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by DragonWriter · · Score: 1

      The $1 billion in money that these fraudulent clicks cost Google doesn't exist.


      Yes, it does. It exists and remains in the hands of Google's advertisers who, if Google didn't work as hard as it does to identify fraudulent clicks, would be charged that amount.

      Now, really, this doesn't mean Google is "losing" money, it means Google is spending money (both in terms of staff time and resources, and in terms of reduced effective advertising charges) to provide quality service (i.e., only charging for the meaningful clicks that advertisers are looking to get) to their paying customers.

    14. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by cowscows · · Score: 1

      And that would drive the advertisers away, because nobody wants to pay for those fake clicks.

      If you look at it a very specific way, you can frame the discussion so that it looks like it's costing google a billion dollars. But it's not really a meaningful or useful number, except that Google can say to potential advertising clients, "hey look how honest we are, you should use our advertising service."

      --

      One time I threw a brick at a duck.

    15. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by Ajehals · · Score: 1

      If so it would also mean that they charged advertisers for them, so they still aren't losing* anything.

      *That's the apparently similar to "loosing" in case anyone is confused... :)

    16. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by catbutt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think you are failing to factor in that the amount google makes on ads is determined by the market rate. And the market rate takes into account whether or not the clicks are real or not, since if it doesn't produce sales equal to the amount they pay for the advertising, people won't pay for it, and the price therefore adjusts downward. Google doesn't necessarily make more or less money because of false clicks, they just are paid less per click, but there are more clicks.

      You say "up to the point where advertisers start jumping ship". They don't "jump ship" per se, they just pay less.

    17. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by JoelKatz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is a nonsensical argument.

      For example suppose they can afford to audit a random 1% of clicks they detect are bogus and 1% of clicks they detect are legitimate. Assume 1% is statistically significant. They can compute with known accuracy how many clicks fall into each of these categories:
      1) Legitimate clicks detected as legitimate.
      2) Bogus clicks detected as bogus.
      3) Legitimate clicks detected as bogus.
      4) Bogus clicks detected as legitimate.

      Type 1 clicks, obviously, are great. Type 2 clicks don't harm Google significantly. Type 3 clicks are the big problem for Google as these result in lost revenue. Type 4 clicks result in income for Google but harm their reputation. Ultimately, this might be reflected in lower ad rates or fewer customers.

      But your basic argument is flawed. They may be able to detect bogus clicks very reliable with a method that's impractical for use on a high percentage of clicks.

    18. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      "Google discards those clicks voluntarily. If they hadn't, they could be charging the advertisers for each such click, and would be making more money."

      So, is Google stupid? No, of course not.

      They are smart enough to know that if they charged for clicks they know are bogus, they would make *less* money. They'd have to charge less per ad, they'd lose customers, and so on.

      These bogus clicks ARE NOT opportunities to make money. They're simply bogus.

      There is no scenario where Google could convert these into revenue.

      If you lose $1 billion due to something, that would have to mean that if not for that something, you'd make $1 billion more. If not for these fraudulent clicks, Google would make the same amount.

      Yes, *IF* those fraudulent clicks were legitimate, Google would make $1 billion more. But they're simply aren't that many legitimate clicks, and that's not because of the fraudulent ones.

    19. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have a friend who is a criminal. He offered me a million dollars last year to help him with his fraud. I turned him down.

      Thus, my criminal friend's fraud is costing me a million dollars. See the problem?

      --
      No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
    20. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by TheDreadSlashdotterD · · Score: 1

      Is there a click farm or something? I'd like to know where they 'loose' these clicks to.

      --
      I have nothing to say.
    21. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by moderatorrater · · Score: 3, Insightful

      To keep its lead in text ads and to avoid law suits, Google puts a lot of time and effort into catching fraud. That costs them money in development and the projects the developers could have done instead. Then there's the percentage they would have taken had that been a legitimate click which they no longer take because they have to nullify it. Then there's the lost bandwidth from having to serve out and record the click, plus the extra servers because of fraud. Let's not forget that they have to pay their lawyers to defend them from the lawsuits that would come whether google's at fault or not.

      It's true that publishers lose more money from fraud than google does, but that doesn't mean it doesn't cost Google either.

    22. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by Achromatic1978 · · Score: 0

      Wow. Apparently now 'building a comprehensive and relatively failsafe infrastructure' is something they /shouldn't/ have to do? Protecting against fraud, and semblances of security, shouldn't be necessary?

    23. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by vlad30 · · Score: 1

      How dumb are reporters these days?
      You really want to know?

      --
      Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
    24. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're wrong. Google goes to great lengths to make sure false bogus clicks are more likely than false legit clicks. They lose money on this in order to keep the trust of their customers.

    25. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by mooingyak · · Score: 1

      Who said it wasn't necessary? Does the fact that it's necessary suddenly mean that they can build it for free?

      --
      William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
    26. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by rbanffy · · Score: 1

      OK. You win. It may be an educated guess.

    27. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      "Who says they're not doing an analysis of caught vs. un-caught fraudulent clicks? If they have a decently accurate percentage figure for fake clicks that manage to pass their system, then that IS money lost, since it WAS paid out."

      Err, what?! If they fail to detect a bogus click, they get *PAID* by the advertiser for that click. They pay out less than the advertiser pays.

      Google is only scammed by bogus clicks indirectly.

      For example, if I run an ad with Google and some other company, undetected bogus clicks will reduce the apparent effectiveness of the Google ad (the ratio of clicks I pay for to sales I get will be lower). This makes Google's ads worth less money.

      In truth, Google benefits from click fraud in a very subtle and non-obvious way. Certain types of click fraud will travel with you from company to company. For example, if a competitor is trying to drain your ad budget, they will click on your ads whether they're hosted by Google or someone else. Google has the most sophisticated click fraud detection in the industry. So click fraud will actually decrease another advertiser's apparent effectiveness by more than Google's.

      Google does not pay out for fraudulent clicks as much as its competitors do because it detects them better.

    28. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      Let's put it this way. The $1 billion Google "lost" they did not earn and were not entitled to. It is insane to say that fraud cost you money that you did not earn or was not entitled to. If someone loses $100,000 to a Nigeria scam, they are actually out $100,000 that they earned and that they are entitled to.

      The argument you are making is incorrect for very subtle reasons. I'll try an analogy because I think that explains it best:

      Suppose I run a video game store. Someone leaves 100 copies of Halo 3 on my doorstep. I have no idea where they came from. I do some investigation and determine that they are illegal copies. I could sell them for $50 each. But since I don't wish to participate in a fraud, I do not.

      So did these copies being dumped on my doorstep cost me $5,000? If I hadn't detected that they were fraudulent and opted not to sell them, I'd be $5,000 richer.

      Of course, that's $5,000 I did not earn and to which I'm not entitled.

      It is the same with click fraud. This is fraudulent worthless "items" being dumped on Google's doorstep. They could sell them as if they were the genuine article and rip off their customers, but they're a smart reputable business, and so they don't. But they are not out the amount they could have sold the clicks for because they are not entitled to that money because they did not earn it.

    29. Re:Bad math, bad logic. by CharlieHedlin · · Score: 1

      False clicks redirect money from the publisher to other sites (AdSense). I doubt the fraud is for the google search page where Google get 100%.

      This money is leaving the publishers and landing in the hands of criminals. This is going to hurt the legitimate businesses.

      Some advertisers will jump ship, which will lower the rate for other advertisers.

  5. Dont bother with TFA. The summary says it all. by Aranykai · · Score: 2

    Stupid articles that dont contain any actual information. Got me all excited to know how google filters the false clicks.

    --
    If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
    1. Re:Dont bother with TFA. The summary says it all. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How did this junk make the front page of /.?

  6. Doomed to repeat it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They learned nothing from the failed business model based on Internet ads before the dotcom bust. It's simply not a solid model to base one's business on.

    Give it up. No one wants to deal with online ads.

    1. Re:Doomed to repeat it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      10 percent of their clicks being fradulent results in a "loss" of $1 billion. That means they're actualling bringing in a revenue of $9 billion. That doesn't sound like a failed business model.

  7. Ads by Threni · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've been on the net for about 11 years now, and I've not one single time ever deliberately clicked on an ad because it was interesting. I've clicked on accident; I've clicked to allow a download to proceed, or to get a limited time pass to an otherwise charged-for service/site, and I've clicked just for a laugh to fool people into thinking I give a shit, but the day I start to get interested in and buy products based on commercials (online or elsewhere) instead of reading reviews, comparing alternatives and talking to friends/family who've bought something is the day you can take my brain out and give it to someone else.

    1. Re:Ads by Kingrames · · Score: 1

      "but the day I start to..."

      *pulls out circular saw*

      You didn't ACTUALLY specify that your brain could be removed only after said action. >:D

      --
      If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
    2. Re:Ads by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      You didn't ACTUALLY specify that your brain could be removed only after said action.

      He has the special power of immunity to advertising. Sylar will be around to collect his brain soon enough.

    3. Re:Ads by sampson7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is cruel.

      My family runs a small business, http://www.beadstore.com./ We are not Apple or Microsoft. We do not gross anywhere near a million dollars a year. Each time you click on one of our ads you take somewhere between 5 cents to $1.00 directly out of our pocket.

      Now we try to target our ads only to those who care about beads and jewelry and such -- but our ads sometimes display for completely random searches.

      What on earth is possibly wrong with buying something off the internet? A Google search for "African King Beads" (including the quotes) and my store is the first hit.

      I also happen to know many of the merchants listed on the right advertising for those key words; after all, the high end collectible bead family is relatively small. I would *never* click on one of their ads, because I know it costs them money every time I do. If I wouldn't do this to my competitors, why would you do it to a random stranger?

    4. Re:Ads by lena_10326 · · Score: 1

      I've been on the net for about 11 years now, and I've not one single time ever deliberately clicked on an ad because it was interesting
      New computer users click on ads (as well as everything else on the screen). You have simply learned to ignore them. New users have not, which is why google makes money.

      --
      Camping on quad since 1996.
    5. Re:Ads by swv3752 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have clicked on adds to buy a product, but it was for products I was looking to buy anyways. I figure i can help support a site without costing me anything extra.

      --
      Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
    6. Re:Ads by pembo13 · · Score: 1

      Before Google Ads, I could have probably said the same, but I have come across some click worthy Google ads.

      --
      "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
    7. Re:Ads by nscheffey · · Score: 1

      So if I want to buy something, and I google the product and click a sponsored link, I'm an idiot? Chill out man.

    8. Re:Ads by cowscows · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't say that I'm particularly susceptible to being manipulated by advertisements, but even for someone like me who mostly ignores them, I would say that they manage to sometimes make me aware of products that I wouldn't otherwise know about.

      But it's all about the venue and the relevance of the ad. The ads on Penny Arcade's website have showed me new games that I ended up spending some money on. The guys that run PA have said that they only accept advertisements for games that they think are of reasonable quality, and I believe them.

      Other times, I've seen an ad that refers to something that I've been considering buying, and I've clicked on that ad as part of the product research that you mentioned. I've yet to see a banner ad that made me jump up and pull out my credit card, but an advertisement piquing your interest does not automatically make you a fool or a sheep.

      --

      One time I threw a brick at a duck.

    9. Re:Ads by jombeewoof · · Score: 1

      If I wouldn't do this to my competitors, why would you do it to a random stranger? You seem like a relatively decent and honest person. Others, not quite so much.

      consider this scenario
      If I were to say pay someone $25 a day in cash to spend 3 hours "clicking ads" I could probably force a small company like yours out of business in just a few short weeks.
      Build a small business out of this process, charging local small companies to sabotage their competitors, and have someone in a small country where $25 is a fairly large amount of money and you have a fairly decent reason why.

      As a businessman, you cannot assume the other guy is as honest as you are, and I would expect something like this process goes on thousands of times a day throughout the world.
      You have to decide if the advertisement is worth what you are paying.

      It might not be the most honest business in the world, but I can think of other even worse things people are making money on, so I seriously doubt that it is not happening.
      --
      Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
    10. Re:Ads by Jarjarthejedi · · Score: 1

      The GP doesn't imply that anything is wrong with buying off the internet, he implies that buying based on ads is something stupid that he wouldn't do. Personally I agree with him on that, I'm one of the people unaffected by advertisements and so no matter how good an company or product is I'm not going to buy it based on an ad. I've only gotten interested in probably 10 products thanks to ads and I've only bought 1 item that I can remember where I originally heard of it from an ad (a christmas gift for someones).

      Now, I don't agree with the whole 'click on random ads for no reason' thing. I'm not sure but I doubt the GP agrees with it either (I get the impression he does it once in a Blue Moon). I do, however, agree with the whole 'Click on ads from big name companies on sites you enjoy but whose sole source of income is advertising with no intent of purchasing'. While I wouldn't click on an ad for your company, as it would neither be featured on any of my favorite sites (no offense of course, most of my favorite sites are webcomics and I've never heard of a webcomic whose subject matter is remotely related to beads) nor is it a big name, I have been known to click on Ford, GM, Sony (*shivers involuntarily*) and other big name companies ads, then immediately close the link, just so my favorite website gets a buck. Is that right? Who knows, it has a benefit (comic artist gets payed) and a penalty (big name company loses money). Whether the good outweights the bad, visa versa, or some other combination applies is up to someone else.

      I only click on ads when I know that the penalty for the company will be tiny (a dollar or 10 out of GM's wallet isn't going to bankrupt them) and the advantage for the advertiser great (they get paid).

      --
      There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
    11. Re:Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I totally agree with you. I've been on the net for at least as long as you, and I rarely if ever click on ads. I rarely even READ them. I will admit I've clicked on them from time to time, but most of the time I find something interesting, I will copy the link and remove the referral crap, and just get to my site, without the site being charged for it. I'm running a website that is getting increasingly popular and our ad clicks are insanely high. I have no idea why people would click any of them but sure I'll take the extra pocket change. I honestly feel Google doesn't pay enough for what advertisers do. I want to be paid for views, and paid more for clicks than I already am.

    12. Re:Ads by Larry+Lightbulb · · Score: 1

      I've clicked on plenty of ads, usually to read information.

    13. Re:Ads by Larry+Lightbulb · · Score: 1

      It's such a common thing that there's even parody sites such as http://www.clickmonkeys.com/ about it.

    14. Re:Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As one website owner once put it. "I know the advertisement linking to a paper on how D&D is devil worship is annoying. And while I could get rid of it, look at it this way, every time you click on it, they have to pay me money."

    15. Re:Ads by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      It's worse than you think. I conslut sometimes for a couple of small ISPs, and when I take a look at their squid logs, I see that 1/3 of all freaking http requests are for ads. And don't forget that bandwidth is precious, same for screen real estate and human attention.

      You may reply "but the ISP is paid for that anyway". Yes, but they have to deliver less real content for the same money while incurring more costs. So who loses? Customers and ISPs. Who wins? Advertisers. Guess where my sympathy is.

      "False ad clicks" may cost Google 1 billion dollars a year, but ads in general cost the society at large many trillions dollars.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    16. Re:Ads by LizzyDragon · · Score: 1

      Forgive me if this sounds like an ignorant comment, but wouldn't be possible to set some kind of limit on the banner ads. That is, tell Google that you're willing to pay up to a total of $X per month for clicks. Once that limit is hit, Google wouldn't run any more ads for the store until the next month or you increase the limit. If it's not possible to do this, it might not be a bad idea to suggest to Google.

    17. Re:Ads by Solder+Fumes · · Score: 1

      That's pretty much the way Google has done it since day one.

    18. Re:Ads by PsyQo · · Score: 1

      So... how much did this slashvertisement cost your family? :)

    19. Re:Ads by dank+zappingly · · Score: 1

      Yeah I was thinking the exact same thing. The only time I click on ads is by mistake, especially when I'm using a touchpad instead of a mouse. On the internet, I know what I want to find, and view all the ads as an annoyance. It's not like T.V. where I'm watching in a near-stupor and am sometimes too lazy to change the channel. If I had to guess (just based on personal experience) I would say the number of illegitimate clicks is close to 50%. Are there any people out there who regularly click internet ads?

    20. Re:Ads by porpnorber · · Score: 1

      I'm not grasping something here. Every time I see your ad, I suffer perhaps between 0.1 cent and 20 cents of annoyance. The only reason I might tolerate this is that I want your money to go to Google. Your bead store? That's your affair, not mine. Except for your function in supporting Google so I don't have to, I'd prefer that you go away - not necessarily out of business, but at least out of sight and out of mind.

      So why do I not click on your link? Not because I like you (people who like you either already know you or are the people you want to click the link); it is because if I actually saw your website, and it wasn't extremely funny, it would cause me an additional 10 cents to $2 worth of annoyance - if it is funny, rather more than that in time - and Google's cut (or rather Google's kickback to me on this cut, in services) is not big enough that I'm willing to suffer this!

      You invade my life, in your small way, with your ad, so you can't really reason with me as with a friend, or even a disinterested stranger; you're starting our relationship a penny in the hole. And it seems to me that you jumped onto that slippery slope of economic compromise far more voluntarily than someone who just needed a search engine. If you're not getting a good deal, do something else.

      I don't think this technology has the semantics that you think it has.

    21. Re:Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like you should be using a system where you only have to pay if you actually make a sale.

    22. Re:Ads by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

      If your business strategy relies on people not being assholes on the internet, may I wish you all the luck in the world. Since the first goatse was posted, it was clear that the internet breeds assholes...

      .....shitcock.

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    23. Re:Ads by heinousjay · · Score: 1

      What method did you use to put a price on your annoyance? I must know, so I can make fun of it.

      --
      Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    24. Re:Ads by porpnorber · · Score: 1

      Sadly, at least in the case of the passive ad, I arrived at this conclusion by asking myself how much I would actually pay to have the nuisance go away. I doubt you can have much fun with this.

      I would give $150 for an iron-clad guarantee that I would never have to see Battlefield Earth again. I really would. I think about these things....

    25. Re:Ads by catbutt · · Score: 1

      So...just curious...do you encourage others to act the same way you do? Because a lot of the web would disappear if there wasn't a revenue model.

      I occasionally click on ads if they pique my interest, especially at sites I frequent and enjoy. To take the point of stance of never clicking on ads (as if by principle), is akin to someone who says they never tip at a restaurant on principle. What exactly is the principle?

    26. Re:Ads by JuliaNZ · · Score: 1

      I have clicked on adds to buy a product, but it was for products I was looking to buy anyways.

      Interesting... and did you in fact gain any extra inches?

    27. Re:Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Because a lot of the web would disappear ....

      Most of the web should disappear. There are thirty or forty sites I care about. The rest can go to hell.

    28. Re:Ads by NoMaster · · Score: 0, Troll

      Each time you click on one of our ads you take somewhere between 5 cents to $1.00 directly out of our pocket.
      Well, I know how to save you that money - and a whole lot more.

      Don't advertise.

      "Oh, but how will we make money if people don't hear about our wonderful <insert product &/or service here>?"

      Not my problem, mate. I'm off to Google "African King Beads" and click on the ads a few times...

      --
      What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
    29. Re:Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have an old sock that you can put over your eyes.
      Mail me $150 and a stamped envelope.

    30. Re:Ads by Threni · · Score: 1

      > What on earth is possibly wrong with buying something off the internet?

      Nothing. Where did I say I had a problem with that? I do it all the time.

      > our ads sometimes display for completely random searches.

      Some people don't mind that. I find it completely frustrating. There's a balance, isn't there, between those who see and ad for your product and who go `yeah, I'll check that out`, and those who go `for fucks sake, what the hell is this?`. When ads are as unobtrusive as Google text ads then that's fine but when my PC crashes because of annoying animated ads (Flash, javascript), full screen nonsense that subsequently locks it up as happened several times (admittedly this was 10 years ago on earlier browsers/PCs) then that's not fine.

    31. Re:Ads by GoblinJuice · · Score: 1

      How can you not love Battlefield Earth? It's got everything! A human vs alien struggle, bullshit technology, and bad acting! =D

    32. Re:Ads by Threni · · Score: 1

      > So...just curious...do you encourage others to act the same way you do? Because a lot of the web would disappear if there wasn't a revenue model.

      I recommend that people use Firefox and get the Adblock extension. Everyone is pretty happy about that - I've yet to hear anyone say `but I like having large parts of the screen filled up with annoying, cheesy commercials for stuff I have no interest in`. It's like TV. No-one like watching commercials, which is part of the reason downloading, or recording TV is becoming so popular - you just zap through the commercials in a few seconds at 40x normal speed and they're done (or in the case of downloads, they're removed beforehand).

      If everyone who read Slashdot paid £1 (or $1, which is rapidly becoming the same thing!) per year they'd get a fair amount of money - more than enough to cover bandwidth, which is all this sort of a site really requires. I guess I could click on ads on Slashdot if it fooled people into paying them for it. Hold on a second - I'll do it now. How many clicks do you think they want?

    33. Re:Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      This is cruel.

      My family runs a small business, ....

      So, because you're small, we should put up with all the intrusive shit heaped on us by middle-sized and large and fucking huge businesses?

      Bullshit -- I'm tired of people telling me that because their fourth cousin fifteen times removed has a game leg that I can't tell and enjoy gimp jokes.

      Crap -- they're funny and I won't stop.

    34. Re:Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't you do his suggested search, click through to the page but no further -- and cost the fucking leech some real money?

    35. Re:Ads by ajs318 · · Score: 1

      Bravo!

      There's one thing that really bugs me. Why the hell haven't any of the little broadband resellers started offering "ad-free browsing" (a Squid proxy with a blacklist?) as an extra-cost option? It's as simple as configuring a proxy server. And the big broadband companies already use transparent proxies anyway.

      --
      Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
    36. Re:Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I would *never* click on one of their ads" You don't have to. In the year 2007 you let other people do this for you: Check this out: http://www.clickmonkeys.com/ 1000 Clicks for a bug. ;-)

    37. Re:Ads by discord5 · · Score: 1

      This is cruel. [snip] Each time you click on one of our ads you take somewhere between 5 cents to $1.00 directly out of our pocket.

      What would be really cruel is laughing like Doctor Evil when I'm writing a bash script to do it for me. But in all seriousness...

      If I wouldn't do this to my competitors, why would you do it to a random stranger?

      My previous employer once spent an entire day looking for software to do exactly that. While he could 've just as easily done something productive that day, the fact that the keywords "linux consultancy" in our region made our biggest competitor show up at the top pissed him off.

      So, he wasted a day where he could've easily made money, trying to cost someone else something like 100$. Some people are assholes, some people don't feel like working that day, and some people are just too envious for their own good (and some people are the three combined into one)

    38. Re:Ads by sampson7 · · Score: 1

      To elaborate on the other response, this is precisely what Google does. I can set monthly or daily limits on the amount I spend on any particular key work, combination of key works, or for a total "campaign."

      In fact, it even pro-rates the amount I'm willing to spend so that the ads don't all appear in the first day or two, or at any particular time of day. So if we have a $10 a day limit for the word "beads", not every search for that term would return our ad, since Google automatically spaces the ads out over the day. It's actually a pretty slick system with lots of controls.

    39. Re:Ads by sampson7 · · Score: 1

      Priceless ;)

      But I think my "marketing" strategy might need a little work. Somehow I suspect that /. is not exactly a target audience for selling jewelry; since, you know, most of our customers are girls and such.

    40. Re:Ads by sampson7 · · Score: 1

      Why don't you do his suggested search, click through to the page but no further -- and cost the fucking leech some real money? And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I (a) stopped our ads before posting, and (b) went to law school instead of opening more beadstores. Jewelry fashions come and go, but assholes are forever.
    41. Re:Ads by sherriw · · Score: 1

      Exactly. I wish my family would would think like this. My brother bought one of those "Chocolate" cell phones, when they were new and expensive, only to learn it blows as an MP3 player and is fragile as a phone. Woops, should have read some reviews eh bro? ;)

    42. Re:Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Click! Hey! Click! Hehehe! Click! .... I'm clicking your Ad! Hehehe. Click! Heh. Click!

      Heh. Send me a dollar. Click! Heh. Send me a dollar and I'll stop. Heh...... CLICK!

    43. Re:Ads by Threni · · Score: 1

      > Exactly. I wish my family would would think like this. My brother bought one of those "Chocolate" cell phones, when they were new and expensive,
      > only to learn it blows as an MP3 player and is fragile as a phone. Woops, should have read some reviews eh bro? ;)

      A friend of mine has one of those. I don't understand why he didn't ask me first - not that I'm a phone expert or anything but I'd just spent my annual (or 18 monthly) week or so looking into which phone to get as part of an upgrade. It doesn't flip properly, the buttons don't work and the battery life is terrible. He was complaining that modern phones are getting worse and it was all I could do to not shove my k800i in his face and say `how is this worse? worse than what?`!

    44. Re:Ads by GWBasic · · Score: 1

      Each time you click on one of our ads you take somewhere between 5 cents to $1.00 directly out of our pocket.

      Disclaimer: I don't advertise with Google.

      I think some merchants mistakenly think that all leads from Google will generate a sale, or that they will get a higher percentage of sales from Google. The average Google user has no concept of pay-per-click; thus the average user will click away, not realizing that he/she is costing YOU money.

      I also happen to know many of the merchants listed on the right advertising for those key words; after all, the high end collectible bead family is relatively small. I would *never* click on one of their ads, because I know it costs them money every time I do. If I wouldn't do this to my competitors, why would you do it to a random stranger?

      So how come you're paying so much? If you know the people you're bidding against, why don't you agree to bid less? Is it as important to be the topmost link? Why not fight to be 2nd, or 3rd? You're in a situation where you can deflate the value of a click, which works in you favor!

  8. thats a change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    googles ads being abused by false clicks is hardly new, although when i first heard of it google was actually benefitting from it and the compagnies advertising with google were the ones getting duped.

  9. RIAA math is being used by El_Smack · · Score: 4, Funny

    From TFA "Google does not charge its advertisers for clicks it determines to be invalid. For example, if 10 out of 100 clicks were excluded Google would not charge its advertisers for the invalid clicks, cutting into the company's revenue."

    Someone is counting invalid clicks as lost revenue, rather than counting them as, well... invalid? Who at the Googleplex used to work in the music/movie industry?

    --


    There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
    1. Re:RIAA math is being used by tgatliff · · Score: 1

      Well they could have also worked for the BSA... You know, the "Bogus Statistics Association"...

  10. Google does not "lose" 1 Billion per year by VidEdit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google doesn't get to charge for fraudulent clicks. That isn't the same as "loosing" $1,000,000,000.

    Google isn't out any cash for the fraud, it is people who **buy** Google ads and pay per click who potentially loose money to fraudulent clicks, not Google. And there no way that Google can catch all click fraud, so it is **inevitable** that at least some advertisers will be charged for fraudulent clicks.

    Nice post. Way to make Google look like the victim when they aren't the ones who actually pay for fraudulent clicks.

    --
    1. Re:Google does not "lose" 1 Billion per year by hiryuu · · Score: 1

      How the hell did you get it right in the subject ("lose"), yet screw it up twice in the post? :P

      --
      Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
  11. What really sucks... by Infonaut · · Score: 1

    ... is that mainstream news outlets have become so completely brainless as to parrot statements like the ones in this story. Then they wonder why people are seeking alternative sources of information.

    The logic behind this story is bogus. The $1 billion in money that these fraudulent clicks cost Google doesn't exist. If not for the bogus clicks, these clicks wouldn't exist.

    --
    Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
  12. Lost money? by cortesoft · · Score: 1

    Saying that Google loses 1 Billion dollars a year is a little misleading. They didn't lose the money; they never were supposed to have it in the first place. From the article, it seems that it is more like the fraudulent clicks add up to 1 Billion dollars worth a year, but no one 'loses' that money. They don't pay it to the websites that generate the false clicks, nor do they charge advertisers for it (at least the ones they detect, which seems to be where they are calculating the 1 billion dollars from). It is silly to say that the amount of money generated from those clicks is money to lose; it is money they never earned in the first place. If there were no fraudulent clicks, that billion dollars wouldn't suddenly be in Google's pockets. It is more accurate to say that if they charged advertisers for illegitimate clicks, they could make a billion dollars more.

  13. How much in USD? by bidule · · Score: 5, Funny


    What is the exchange rate from RIAA dollars to USD? Because it seems they are using the same monetary units.

    --
    ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
    1. Re:How much in USD? by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      I believe the numeral zero features prominently in that number. In fact, I think you can express it using only zeros.

    2. Re:How much in USD? by zegota · · Score: 1

      I think it's something like 1 RIAAD = 3.5 MB = $750,000

    3. Re:How much in USD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      What is the exchange rate from RIAA dollars to USD? Because it seems they are using the same monetary units.

      I don't know for sure, but I'm getting damned tired of the billions I lose each year to the millions of people whom I email asking for only $1000 each. If only one tenth of those "thieves" sent me the money, I wouldn't be reduced to waxing my own Lamborghinis.

      I should start sending all of them "settlement letters".

  14. Click fraud isn't costing Google $1B by MacDork · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Click fraud is only inflating the number of clicks made by $1B. Roughly 10% according to the article. Sounds suspiciously low to me. Spam certainly comprises greater than 10% of all email sent, why are click fraud rates so low?

    1. Re:Click fraud isn't costing Google $1B by moderatorrater · · Score: 1

      Because you have to either pay someone to actually click on a link or make a bot which perfectly spoofs a browser to do it for you. Either way you need to make sure it happens in such a way that there's no pattern to the clicking so that google doesn't catch you, including timing, ip address, etc. I would liken the click fraud to spam that gets through gmail's filter rather than unfiltered email, and for me that's about 10% (depending on the day).

  15. There's definitely some problems... by Creamsickle · · Score: 2, Informative

    The small company I work for has about $1M in sales annually, and we spend almost $250,000 a year on Google Adwords. Roughly 85% of our sales come from Google. We're getting a conversion rate that is less then one percent and it's gotten worse over time. If it continues to drop, we'll have no choice but reduce our adwords cost-per-click limit and take our advertising dollars elsewhere. No matter how you spell it, that means problems for the G00Gmeister.

    --
    On the 0th day, God created C
    1. Re:There's definitely some problems... by MikeDataLink · · Score: 1

      What company do you work for? I'd like to visit their site.

      --
      Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
    2. Re:There's definitely some problems... by Zerimar · · Score: 1

      Remember that eBay has also dramatically scaled back their advertising on Google and is still doing very well. Of course, the name recognition for eBay is probably far greater than that of your small company, but it does go to show that there *could* be rough seas ahead for Google.

    3. Re:There's definitely some problems... by tompaulco · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We just completely stopped our Google Adwords advertising. We have looked at print, mail, radio and other media advertising, but every time we run the estimated numbers, we find that spending money on advertising would bring us less money in increased sales than we spent on the campaign. I have long suspected, and now believe strongly that the marketers are best not at selling your products but at selling the idea that you need their services.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    4. Re:There's definitely some problems... by AnotherDaveB · · Score: 1

      If 85% of your sales come from Google, and your adwords>sales conversion rate is reducing, I'd you're the ones with the problem, not 'the GOOGmeister'.

    5. Re:There's definitely some problems... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The company I work for has quite brutal initiation ceremonies for new sales and marketing guys.
      They are initially hired for 2-3 months. They are given company credit card, car, phone and the least appealing product of the company. The message is "sell this or your out the door".

      I have to say it works. I've seen some desperate blokes who sadly reminded me of old gill from simpsons when they are grasping at straws in their last days of the temporary contract. Then I've seen some guys so slimy they could probably pro-create with amoebas. One of these guys managed to hook on a big multinational and sell this product to each of their meeting rooms in one country. Have to say the guy is still probably the best seller of contracting and our more obscure products.

    6. Re:There's definitely some problems... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm suspicious of how effective Google AdWords actually are. I have a CTR of 5.3% on my ads which I guess is reasonable, but Google AdSense spending is 28% of my revenue - but only 2/3 of my visitors land on the site via Google ads. Unfortunately I can't directly track page visitors to sales, since it's a mobile phone service paid for via SMS, but the really galling thing is that AdWords make up 70% of my cost base - without them my profit margin would be over 700%!

  16. A Merchant's Perspective & Article Critique. by sampson7 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google loses nothing as a result of clicks it determines to be fraudulent, other than its time and a little server space. On the balance sheet, it's simply as if those clicks never happened. No out of pocket expenses are incurred by google. Eliminating every fraudulent click out there would not increase Google's bottom line one iota, other than its incremental costs of dealing with this fraud.

    We merchants/advertizers are the ones screwed. Google says that 10 percent of clicks are fraudulent? I have zero idea if this is an over-estimate, under-estimate, or dead-on accurate. However, I do know that google has very little incentive to "mark down" my bill every month. My family runs a small business -- http://www.beadstore.com/ -- and sometimes advertise on google. How many of those clicks I pay for each month are fraudulent? Who knows. I certainly can't tell.

    This isn't to say that I distrust Google. The fact is, that when we advertise, our sales go up. So something is working. Advertising on Google makes a bigger difference than any of our other venues. But those numbers suggesting that 30 percent of our advertising budget may be/once was/is potentially lost to fraud? That is truly scary.

  17. Music Industry Math by Frogbert · · Score: 1

    Is this billion dollar loss calculated the same way mp3 downloading costs are?

  18. Sure they are! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    In the same way that the RIAA is losing quadrillions of dollars to music piracy.

  19. Re:A Merchant's Perspective & Article Critique by rbanffy · · Score: 1

    OTOH, I still don't know how and why they declared my site had invalid clicks and, because of it, my AdSense account would be terminated.

    As far as I know, it could even be a well intentioned friend who liked the articles and clicked on all ads to help me.

    Anyway, because of that, Google probably spared its advertisers a couple cents a day.

  20. Founders: Click Fraud Is Google's Greatest Threat by MichaelCrawford · · Score: 3, Informative
    A while back I read that one of Google's founders said that click fraud is the greatest threat to google's business. This is because Black Hats publish websites with AdSense, then fraudulently click the ads on their own pages. They get paid by Google, and the merchants who placed the ads through AdWords Select pay for the fraudulent clicks, but don't enjoy the increased sales that advertising can bring.

    --
    Request your free CD of my piano music.
  21. a way better system by ILuvRamen · · Score: 1, Insightful

    My web host has a nearly perfect system. If someone clicks on the "hey, buy a package from my hosting company" link a cookie is generated. If he buys a web package from that computer before that cookie expires in 60 days or whatever, I get $100. That's right $100 in cash, not hosting credit, an actual check for $100. Yeah some people have cookies disabled but there's other methods that would work better. So basically that purchase based system removes 100% of false clicks and still leaves in like 99% of valid customers. Seems fair to me and the people who let the ads on their website stand to make a way bigger amount of money if they bring valid customers cuz it's basically a large commission on sales. The only problem is if the ad company keeps serving up crappy ads for products nobody would ever buy you don't make any money but you wouldn't make very much on that type of ad through clicks either.

    --
    Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
    1. Re:a way better system by Larry+Lightbulb · · Score: 1

      Google is trying a pay-per-action type of advertising - it's pretty much like Amazon and other affiliates do where the cost is when something is bought.

    2. Re:a way better system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe that's called Pay-Per-Lead

    3. Re:a way better system by ILuvRamen · · Score: 0

      I believe imeem.com has a similar deal with tons of music sellers and I hear they make A LOT of money from it. Check it out. Look up any song and you'll see "Buy this on itunes" and "buy this" on something else that I can't remember but there's 6 retailers listed." Sellers are willing to pay more for commissions because they know exactly what their profit margin and ad expense will be in relation to sales. Not so with clicks and they don't want to be paying a lot for clicks if nobody buys anything so they offer way way way less money per click just in case. Of course if their product takes off because of you, you don't see any of the money and they make a giant profit. That's not fair. And if businesses and ad displayers like it then let's switch to it on a major scale!

      --
      Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
  22. Wait, if they KNOW they are bogus, why pay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If Google can prove they are bogus, why do they waste $1B paying loosers?

    And if they can't prove it, how do we know the $1B number isn't made up?

  23. grr by thatskinnyguy · · Score: 1

    Google loses one billion dollars per year to fraudulent ad clicks. Sure, make me feel like a criminal for using the back button to get out of somewhere I didn't want to be in the first place!
    --
    The game.
  24. Who makes a higher quality car? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BMW or Toyota? Thanks to ads, most will say BMW even if they've never owned either. Having owned both, I can safely say it's the Toyota. BMWs stay in the shop more than they stay in your garage. They are expensive as hell to fix too. Toyotas are reliable and parts are cheap on the rare occasion that you need them. It's much easier to get laid driving a BMW though... shallow hoes.

  25. Yes, but remember... by gillbates · · Score: 1

    There are people on the net dumb enough to believe a distant, heretofore unknown relative needs their services to get a few million dollars out of their African country. And there are enough of them for this kind of fraud to cost Americans millions of dollars a year.

    I'm not at all surprised.

    --
    The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
    1. Re:Yes, but remember... by NoMaster · · Score: 1

      You might also be surprised at how many of those same people run small businesses, web-based or otherwise.

      It never ceased to amaze me, when my job involved dealing with small~medium business owners, how straight-out dumb some of them were. Outside of their own little area of expertise, many were not too far above the "touch the fire to see if it's hot" level...

      (No, I'm not talking about their tech skills. I really am referring to their everyday level of intelligence; the kind necessary to walk without falling over every second step, boil an egg without burning down the house, or avoid being ripped off by Thabo M'Beki and his amazingly generous 10% "helper's fee" offer.)

      --
      What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
  26. "loses one billion dollars" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    cost Google 1 Billion Dollars a year My goodness! And where, pray tell, did those billion dollars go? How were they disbursed? I mean, a billion dollars is a lot of paper. One would think that it would be fairly easy to trace the whereabouts of missing billions... unless... OH MY GOD IS BLACKWATER INVOLVED?
  27. Genius idea, by tomstdenis · · Score: 0, Troll

    Why not just associate ad clicks with google accounts. E.g. I sign in for gmail, then do a google search, see and ad and click on it.

    Surely those must count as "real clicks" as oppose to random anonymous clicks. Why not charge more for those?

    Oh and feel free to use that idea Google. Just doing my bit.

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  28. Re:A Merchant's Perspective & Article Critique by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Income statement, not "balance sheet". Jesus fuck, people, learn what terms mean before incorporating them into posts.

  29. Get the site kicked out of AdSense. by MikeFM · · Score: 1

    One thing Google is bad about is they'll kick a site out of AdSense, with no way to appeal, if users come to your site and start making a lot of fraudulent ad clicks. You can effectively put a small site out of business doing this and Google doesn't even give a damn. They don't just not pay you for the clicks - they won't allow you to ever get paid for the clicks again. It really sucks too sense Google has kind of cornered the market so there are a lot fewer good options for earning ad revenue on your website than there used to be.

    I like Google but I do think they are getting close to being a monopoly in advertising. They need to be careful they avoid being evil.

    --
    At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
  30. What kind of company can spend 25% on advertising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you guys selling a virtual product? If not then how do you pay for R&D, salaries, material costs, etc?

  31. That's OK! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They probably gain a billion a year on spotty conversion assignment. Just because a consumer searched Google to find how to buy a product, doesn't mean Google's ad led to that purchase. If you buy search advertising from Google, be aware that their conversion rates are highly inflated.

  32. Actually even worse... by moosehooey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is actually even worse. It could be argued that someone might buy a CD or a movie if they were unable to pirate it. But, you can't say that google would get more legitimate clicks if they could eliminate the fake ones.

    1. Re:Actually even worse... by DragonWriter · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But, you can't say that google would get more legitimate clicks if they could eliminate the fake ones.


      You could say Google would charge advertisers more in total, given its rates, if it didn't detect as many of the fake ones, though.

    2. Re:Actually even worse... by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      But, you can't say that google would get more legitimate clicks if they could eliminate the fake ones.

            No no no you just don't get it. See, if you click on the ad, you HAVE to buy the product/service. Otherwise you are committing fraud... /sarcasm

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    3. Re:Actually even worse... by moderatorrater · · Score: 1

      No, but they could save money on the back end through servers and programmers/analysts/etc who spend time finding fraud.

    4. Re:Actually even worse... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      No, but they could save money on the back end through servers and programmers/analysts/etc who spend time finding fraud.

      Alternatively, they could just kiss my ass.

    5. Re:Actually even worse... by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

      You could say Google would charge advertisers more in total, given its rates, if it didn't detect as many of the fake ones, though. Only in the short term. As rates are dynamic (auctioning system), they would drop as soon as advertisers noticed that the effectiveness of each click dropped (due to there being 10% fraudulent ones), so in the long range revenue would stay exactly the same.

      The only lost revenue is:

      • If google decides to reject those clicks: Cost of development of fraud catching solution
      • If google decides to not reject those clicks: Loss of reputation due to uneven distribution of fraud. If fraud were evenly spread, rates would just drop by 10% and nobody would really notice. However, in reality some advertisers will be hit very hard (for various reasons), while others might suffer less. And those that are hit hardest will raise a fuss, scaring away the others, giving google a bad reputation, leading to a real loss (... but which would be hard to quantify exactly...)
  33. Walmart loses $XXXX per year on broken merchendise by netsavior · · Score: 1

    Walmart's shelves are too close together so they can fit more stuff in the stores... because of that they deal with a lot of broken merchendise. Does this mean their business model is broken?
    no, it just means that their business model plans on some loss.

  34. Boo Hoo by synonymous · · Score: 0, Troll

    Sob Sob Hoo.

  35. I've bought one product off a banner ad by lennier · · Score: 1

    Moonpod's "Starscape", saw in a /. banner ad, downloaded the demo, liked it, registered the full version, and I was very happy with it.

    Also my current web host I found from a Google sponsored link. Sponsored links are useful when you're shopping, a bit like classified ads.

    I've *clicked* on a fair few banner ads, mostly to find out what they are. But my clicks don't generally translate into intent to purchase.

    --
    You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
  36. False Ad Clicks Cost Me $100 A Year by Larry+Lightbulb · · Score: 1

    It's not really Google who are losing anything; the losers are the advertisers who pay out for invalid clicks that aren't caught, and the small web sites who get their sites closed because their traffic is anomalous.

  37. Is that an ethical argument for ad blocking? by lennier · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess it never crossed my mind that by clicking on a banner ad I'd be causing economic harm. I thought the ad economy these days was all based on impressions, not clickthroughs.

    Makes me want to protect the little guy by filtering out all ads before they display in my browser, just to be on the safe side. Don't want to hurt anyone by accidentally clicking... :)

    --
    You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    1. Re:Is that an ethical argument for ad blocking? by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      The irony is that everybody is obsessed with click-throughs, and yet impressions are probably the most important effect of an ad.

      How many click-throughs do you get on a super-bowl ad? Yet people pay a fortune for them. There is more to advertising than counting clicks...

  38. Re:A Merchant's Perspective & Article Critique by Larry+Lightbulb · · Score: 1

    Only a guess, as their methods are secret, but it seems that having a noticable number of addresses always clicking some adverts is a red flag. Of course, if you have a site which has low traffic and a high percentage are repeat visitors, then that's just the sort of clicking you're bound to get.

  39. Is anything really lost here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When the RIAA claims they're losing revenue due to people not buying CDs, everyone calls bullshit, but when someone claims that Google is losing money due to people not clicking on ads legitimately...

  40. Well I'm doing my part to save them money... by sqrt(2) · · Score: 1

    ...by not displaying the ads at all! No false clicks from me. Are you guys doing your part too?

    --
    If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
  41. So now you Slashvertise? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, but how is that relevant to this story? Now, it appears that you Slashvertise instead of paying Google :-)

  42. Yeah, it's probably true and it sucks by dbmasters · · Score: 1

    The worst part is for publisher that get their accounts closed for invalid clicks that they didn't do and have no control of. Obviously it's stupid to click on one's own ads, that's a banning waiting to happen, but there have been many cases recently in the AdSense support forum, that some of the more outspoken jackass publishers that actually answer a lot of questions for people have been targeted by people they have helped (and generally offended while doing so) for clickbombing their ads on their sites and results in a banning of their accounts. I watched it happen at least 5 or 6 times in the last month. I used to help at the AdSense support forum, being and active AdSenser myself, but kind of got scared away in fear of myself offending someone with a little honesty and having them clickbomb me.

    The sad fact is, AdSense has no real alternative, I have used many systems and none even compare to AdSense in terms of revenue, though many claim to...the AdWords/AdSense system has it's flaws, but it's still the best there is.

    The one thing AdSense could do to better their system is do what many ad systems do, have tighter requirements on who they allow to join their network, and approve per domain...not allow one account to add domains at will, but run each domain through an approval process.

    --
    dB Masters
    1. Re:Yeah, it's probably true and it sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The sad fact is, AdSense has no real alternative, I have used many systems and none even compare to AdSense in terms of revenue, though many claim to...the AdWords/AdSense system has it's flaws, but it's still the best there is.


      quit smoking crack - AdSense is probably the worst ( least paying ) CPC program in existence

      I could name half a dozen CPC ad programs that work better and pay better than AdSense, but I won't

      you just stick with your AdSense, I'll stick with my commission checks
    2. Re:Yeah, it's probably true and it sucks by dbmasters · · Score: 1

      Obviously whats effective and whats not will be different for every web site...I don't smoke crack and I have run MANY different systems on my web site and nothing, so far, has even come CLOSE to the payout I get from AdSense. If I could find a better one, I'd be using it...if someone has one to try that I haven't used yet, I'd LOVE to give it a try. And don't even bother claiming AdBrite, Bidvertiser, RMX Direct or any of those stupid, worthless programs...

      --
      dB Masters
  43. Re:A Merchant's Perspective & Article Critique by hoppo · · Score: 1

    You do not get "screwed" by fraudulent clicks by any means. The entire premise of pay-per-click, AdWords, and any other performance-based advertising is that you the advertiser have the information available to you to determine what traffic you receive from the ad system is worth. The amount of "fraud" is irrelevant -- you know what you spend, and you know the return you get from that expenditure. If it makes sense based on your ROI to keep spending, you do so. If not, you cease or alter your advertising. If Google screens out more "fraud," the bids will rise, as each individual click becomes more valuable. If it screens less, bids will drop. The end result will be that your total spend remains constant in either scenario.

  44. Sigh.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your flawed business model being exposed != fraud.

    Sorry, you can pay a commission on sales through google referrals. You can simply pay for placement and let the clicks fall where they may. But no. A system has been set up where you've elected to pay by the number of times a certain link is clicked.

    Sorry, but if I decide to set up a robot on my home computer that goes to the same URL every minute, that's not fraud. The fact that the owner of the URL has contracted with an advertising provider to pay them every time the URL is accessed isn't my fault, and isn't my problem. "Click fraud" isn't fraud.

    Now, it can be reasonably argued that the way google and advertisers business agreements are set up was on the expectation that there was a certain percentage of click throughs that would be "qualified" traffic that will end up buying something. But if that's the case, WRITE IT INTO THE BLOODY CONTRACT! It's not my fault you're paying based on the expectation that one click in 500 will convert, and you're only getting 1 in 1000. Those 999 people aren't comitting fraud. They're just not buying.

    And, yes, I know that some companies are exploting these flawed agreements to force their competitors to pay "too much" because they have such "pay by the click" agreements. But the solution is to fix the bloody system, not rail about "click fraud." Sorry, but me going to a website and not buying something isn't fraud. Me going to a site not intending to buy isn't fraud. I suppose it's a waste of resources, but don't come crying about how you're paying someone on the assumption I'd buy something, and I'm not.

    I know the "fraudsters" use robots, but that's not convincing either. If your agreement is this easy to exploit, YOU need to fix YOUR AGREEMENT. Don't call it fraud.

    1. Re:Sigh.... by SL+Baur · · Score: 1

      I know the "fraudsters" use robots, but that's not convincing either. If your agreement is this easy to exploit, YOU need to fix YOUR AGREEMENT. Don't call it fraud. I would tend to agree with that statement, but I wanted to see what the definition of a "fraudulent click" was.

      The act of purposely clicking ad listings without intending to buy from the advertiser. http://www.tractionsearch.com/se-dictionary.php

      All I can say is ewwww. The wiki entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_fraud for click fraud is much stronger and definitely stresses the "fraud" aspect as a US felony. Double ewwww. This sounds like something out of Space Merchants by Fred Pohl.

      Ad-block plus is really my friend and if that kind of law can be enacted and enforced, I will gladly forgo the web2.0 experience or whatever they're calling it now. I'd like the old internet back with Usenet, mailing lists and anonymous FTP for software downloads please.
    2. Re:Sigh.... by George+Glass · · Score: 1

      I think that you have every right to ban Google ads on your own computer, but I don't think that you fully appreciate the beauty that lies within their system. Google displays ads on my pages that are relevant to the subject of my site. Because the ads are relevant to something people are already looking for info on, they are much more likely to click on an ad. When they do this, EVERYBODY WINS! The site visitor wins because they find information on a product they were looking for anyway, and they are not obligated to make a purchase. The advertiser wins because they not only get a hit to their site, but it is a hit from someone who was already looking for information related to what they sell. The publisher wins because they get a cut of the profit. Google wins because they get a cut. Few other ad companies can compete, because their ads aren't relevant! Yahoo tries to compete -- but I have been in their beta ad system for a year; They pay much more per click than Google, but the click through rate is so small because of ad (non)relevancy that we still make more with Google! I believe a more appropriate definition of "fraudulent click" is a click that is only for the purpose of costing the advertiser money or making the publisher money (or getting a publisher in trouble). Google is only attempting to not count fraudulent and accidental clicks against the advertiser. Your definition is not Google's definition and I have heard nothing about an attempt to sue people who have accidentally clicked on an ad. I don't believe there is any law that says you have to intend to buy a product - but you should have an genuine interest in an ad if you click on it on purpose. Your bad intent can really only be shown if you are clearly clicking on a ridiculous number of ads than any honest person would, or clicking on ads that are on a website you own. Many people click on ads accidentally once in awhile, but how many make that mistake a hundred or more times per day? At some point this type of activity does become criminal, but to be worried that you are going to go to jail for one slip of your pointer finger is simply ridiculous.

    3. Re:Sigh.... by SL+Baur · · Score: 1

      At some point this type of activity does become criminal, but to be worried that you are going to go to jail for one slip of your pointer finger is simply ridiculous. First, I agree with what you wrote regarding google ads. As a matter of fact, in the first month or so after I was back in the US after a lengthy stay in Asia I was emailing a friend (through gmail) regarding Linux notebook computers and gmail brought up a set of targeted ads that included the company my friend recommended later. I do not mind the way google does ads. I'm never ever going to buy from an ad, at least on first sight[*], but at least they do it in a fashion that isn't intrusive and bandwidth wasting the way a flash movie ad is.

      I very much do mind how this term is defined. Read the wikipedia entry (which could only have been edited by an advertiser). I very much object to the wording. I very much object to the fact that the "blocking ads is theft" meme even exists with legs on it - what next, is email SPAM blocking to be considered theft as well if you don't click on the link and buy from the provided link?

      The bigger picture is a frightening one and most reminiscent of the dysfunctional society in Pohl's Space Merchant/Merchant Wars novels where the world leaders are all the heads of advertising agencies.

      I find it most ironic that several of the people posting here confess to fraudulent clicking (by the definitions Google brings up when you web search them for "click fraud") when their intent was to be friendly to the webmaster of the pages they were visiting.

      For once, the /. editors got a story title more correct than the story, but "false click" isn't that much of an improvement. Sigh.

      [*] O.K., O.K. I bought Burning Crusade when I first saw it was made available for download from Blizzard over the internet from the initial WoW screen, but I'd already decided to buy it before that point.
  45. Can't see ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would love to click on some Ads to buy useless products but since Adblock Plus is installed on my Ubuntu FF I don't see them anymore and worst of all I surf faster than ever.

    Time to go back to IE and Windows.

  46. Er...no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're on the exact right notion, but miss the point entirely. In your WalMart example, there's some known expected rate of loss. In online advertising, there's an expected "conversion rate" for people coming through the ad--they know not everyone will buy, but there's a certain percentage they expect will, and that will pay for the ad. The people who don't buy can be likened to broken merchandise--the advertiser incurs a cost but doesn't get a sale. It's loss, and it's expected. And if that was all people were worried about, you'd be right that companies should just factor it in as a "cost of doing business."

    But that's not what people see as a problem here. The problem is that, by adding clicks without any intention to buy, someone running a "click fraud" campaign increases the advertiser's costs without increasing their sales. In your example, this would be like a competitor being able to, say, double the rate at which WalMart's stock breaks, and WalMart having no way to stop it. It's not that there IS waste, it's that someone can (at fairly low cost) increase someone else's "waste" by forcing them to pay for advertisements that are shown to no one.

  47. Dumbass idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, I would clearly want to sign in to google before doing a search, so that advertisers could track me better. Hey, and then they could record my identity and automatically add me to their mailing list! Yes, I'd love to help advertisers out, sacrifice my privacy, and see no net benefit!

    It would just about kill google if they required users to sign in and be tracked before they'd let people search. There are other search engines, and this would most assuredly drive people to them. Don't expect me to pitch in to defend someone else's broken business model.

    1. Re:Dumbass idea by tomstdenis · · Score: 0, Troll

      Um, what do you think they do when you sign in for hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc? Only use that to give you email? Frankly, why should I care if google knows I search for whatever? I mean they're providing me the results so it's kinda a moot point whether they know about it or not isn't it?

      I don't see what your point though is. I never said only show ads to signed in people, I said, count clicks from users for more than cowards who are anonymous [e.g. you]. That way you can still use google sans user ID.

      And as a user, they could actually make it work to my advantage, for example, by not showing me the same ad over and over. Or, personalize the ads to things I tend to search for.

      Once you realize that you are submitting google requests over plaintext, and that people like your ISP and EVERY SWITCH IN BETWEEN can see your traffic anyways, you'll be less paranoid about who knows what about what you're doing.

      Of course you just raised the "paranoid privacy" flag for no cause because you wanted to troll me. Well congrats sir, you managed to use a web browser DESPITE your low IQ and moral standing. I'm just so happy for you, yes I am. Next I hope to see you tie your own shoes, maybe use your crayons to draw a nice picture of me fucking your mother.

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    2. Re:Dumbass idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Next I hope to see you tie your own shoes, maybe use your crayons to draw a nice picture of me fucking your mother.

      It speaks well of your parents' childrearing skills that their spawn dreams of fucking the mothers of retarded children.

      I'm sure they're quite proud of you as well.

  48. Obligatory tag line. by pilsner.urquell · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Obligatory tag line.

  49. it's about scale by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm losing 1 Billion by not starting up that nextgen web2.0 vaporware company and selling out. Google losing 1B a year? Big F-in deal.

  50. So they don't cheat their clients by wardk · · Score: 1

    they are not losing a billion, they are not faslely charging that billion.

  51. Fraud Is Bad, Made for AdSense is worse by patio11 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recently upped my AdWords spending to the (substantial, for me) tune of $15 a day. 20% of my budget was guzzled down by four sites, which all used a technique similar to the following: they had a zillion hand-crafted content pages up, one page on each site was quite close to one of my own search terms, and the page was organized into a workflow. (Search for "apollo bingo card templates" to see the example. No way in heck I'm tossing them a link for it.)

    The AdSense block is under the header for each stage in the workflow, which suggests to unsophisticated Internet users that my ads ARE the next stage in the workflow. You might think I'd be happy about that, because it means a lot of users naively click on me thinking I'm the next step in the workflow, but ALL CLICKS ARE NOT EQUAL. As soon as somebody clicks on my ad, they get whisked to a completely different site and realize "Thats funny, something must have gone wrong". So they click back and I'm out nine cents. Repeat times a couple of hundred over the last 48 hours.

    My CTR (click-through rate) for ads on other sites is in the general region of 1%. Thus, I can reasonably assume that about 1% of the audience reading content with my keywords is at least marginally interested in the product I sell. The CTR on ads on these pages which drew clicks by visual deception was in the teens. That means 15x the earnings for the owners of the deceptive pages. However, the conversion rate (percentage of folks who go on to download my free trial or buy from me) from customers with normal levels of interest (i.e. from other AdSense ads, for example) is about 20%. From these pages, it was less than 2%. Thus, the revenue split from a sale of my software goes from something like 40/40/20 advertiser-Google-me to 100/100/-100 advertiser/Google/me. (I am obviously hoping to tweak the campaign to the point where it is closer to 20/20/60, but even at 40/40/20 its still a positive return on investment.)

    Anyhow, when you work out the math it had me paying something close to $25 to generate a fifty-fifty shot of selling a $25 piece of software. I've since banned the deceptive sites (you can manually choose to not allow your ads on certain domains or URLS), of course, but there are still advertisers getting screwed by them as we speak. And, looking through my logs, there are a LOT of sketchy sites in AdSense which would have cost just as much if they had been blasting through enough traffic. That really threatens the utility of the platform. If its 75% conmen to 25% upstanding sites like Mrs. Smith's Teaching Resources there is no reason for me to pay a single penny for the ads since I'll have to babysit the campaign every hour or get a negative ROI.

  52. When I do click fraud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    When I do my daily click fraud, something i have been doing for years with Google I would never target some crappy small business. Why would I want $1.00 or less for the trouble of my complex click fraud system? I go after the big money, like $50 per click, think mesothelioma or some other lawyer infested topic and you make real money, from evil people who could give a shit about click fraud. Not $0.50 from some guy who sells beads or some crappy hosting company. There are several topics on adwords that have huge returns. Google's detection system has not found me in several years and I do a few grand a month in click fraud on lawyers and the like.


    I would bet less then 1% of clicks for under $5.00 are fraud, as the $$$/click goes up I am sure the fraud rate does. It most liley has little true affect on small businesses.

  53. No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoshHeitzman · · Score: 1

    First it isn't clicks that are being counted, but rather URL hits. Google doesn't know when someone clicks something in their browser as the adwords HTML fragment doesn't include javascript). What Google knows is when an HTTP client requests the content of a specific URL (I was going to post an example but it's quite a long URL).

    Second the HTTP client's request no representation to Google about it's intentions for requesting the URL's content, nor it's intended use of the URL's content.

    --
    Software Inventor
    1. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      "Second the HTTP client's request no representation to Google about it's intentions for requesting the URL's content, nor it's intended use of the URL's content."

      This proves too much. If we really believed that, we could justify anything. Why can't I spam you? It's not my fault your mail server accepts the mail and delivers it to a person. As far as I know, it wants it and might even throw it away.

      No, sorry. If you want to connect to servers run on other people's machines, you have an obligation to use them as they clearly wish you to use them, within reason.

      If you don't believe me, try going to your local supermarket every day and taking every single copy of every "free" newspaper.

      You cannot knowingly impose costs on other people and then say that you are free to do whatever the hell you want regardless.

    2. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoshHeitzman · · Score: 1

      "If we really believed that, we could justify anything. Why can't I spam you? It's not my fault your mail server accepts the mail and delivers it to a person. As far as I know, it wants it and might even throw it away."

      Considering the amount of spam I get (including physical junk mail) I can't see the relevance of the statement nor what spam in general (vs. phishing specifically) has to do with fraud.

      When you leave your windows open without screens in, expect bugs come in the house. The internet is no different. If your server is designed to blindly respond to every request, expect to get requests you don't actually want. Just like physical screens for physical windows, virtual filters for virtual ports cost money.

      --
      Software Inventor
    3. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      "When you leave your windows open without screens in, expect bugs come in the house. The internet is no different. If your server is designed to blindly respond to every request, expect to get requests you don't actually want. Just like physical screens for physical windows, virtual filters for virtual ports cost money."

      You have changed your position in response to my criticism but pretend that you have not. There's a huge difference between your original position:

      "If you walk in bad neighborhoods with $100 bills visibly sticking out of your pockets, people are justified in taking them from you."

      and your new position:

      "If you walk in bad neighborhoods with $100 bills visibly sticking out of your pockets, people are going to take them from you."

      Yes, if you set up a service on the Internet that's capable of being abused, it's going to be abused. But that says nothing about what constitutes abuse or whether a particular type of access is justified or unjustified.

      We accept that spam is abuse because it uses other people's services in a way they did not intend and forces them to choose between accepting both your spam (which they do not want) and other mail (which they do). When you filter ads, you do the same thing and force others into the same trade-offs.

    4. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by Hatta · · Score: 1


      No, sorry. If you want to connect to servers run on other people's machines, you have an obligation to use them as they clearly wish you to use them, within reason.


      If you want to control how other people utilize the resources you give them you have to implement some sort of effective access control. If you leave a bowl of candy on your steps on halloween, don't be surprised when it's all gone in 5 minutes.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    5. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoshHeitzman · · Score: 1

      "You have changed your position in response to my criticism but pretend that you have not."

      Nope. You've mischaracterized my position. I never said anything about being justified. I said it wasn't clicks and it wasn't fraud. Not being fraud does not equal being just (e.g. mugging someone isn't fraud but it isn't just either).

      --
      Software Inventor
    6. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      I'm curious what your theory is for why it's not just without being fraud. I mean, we all know that force is not just even though it's not fraud. So what is it that makes this unjust?

      Spam *is* fraud. When you connect to a mail server, there's an implied contract. When a person offers something under terms everyone knows and understands, taking it while ignoring the terms is fraud.

      If you walk into a barbershop, sit down for a haircut, and then the barber asks for $350, it's fraud. He implicitly accepted the contract you offered him by sitting down for a haircut, and then violated its terms by charging you a price you would not have agreed to.

      It's the same think if you send an email or a web query and attempt to force an arrangement you *know* the victim would not have agreed to.

    7. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoshHeitzman · · Score: 1

      "I'm curious what your theory is for why it's not just without being fraud. I mean, we all know that force is not just even though it's not fraud. So what is it that makes this unjust?"

      I never said it was just or not. All I said was that it isn't a click and it isn't t fraud and that lack of fraud does not equal being just. The lack of fraud does not equal being unjust either. If there is fraud then there is injustice. The lack of fraud alone does not determine whether there has been an injustice or not.

      "Spam *is* fraud. When you connect to a mail server, there's an implied contract."

      While phishing is fraud, spam is only so if there is a law making it so. There is no implied-in-law contract unless there is actually a law creating it, and that varies by jurisdiction. There is no implied-in-fact contract without conduct from both parties from their intention to form a tacit understanding can be inferred. Clearly, one party's conduct (the spammers) demonstrates their lack intention to have an understanding not to send unsolicited commercial e-mails.

      "If you walk into a barbershop, sit down for a haircut, and then the barber asks for $350, it's fraud. He implicitly accepted the contract you offered him by sitting down for a haircut, and then violated its terms by charging you a price you would not have agreed to."

      Actually I think the customer would lose that one if that was the barbers standard rate, no rate was posted, and the customer failed inquire as to price. $350 isn't actually an outrageous price for hair styling, which a hair cut is a form of. It also isn't fraud and as there was no misrepresentation on the barber's part in your scenario.

      --
      Software Inventor
    8. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      "There is no implied-in-fact contract without conduct from both parties from their intention to form a tacit understanding can be inferred."

      Any time one party makes an offer to another, and the other accepts the offer, there's at least an implied contract. That's clearly what's happening in the case of mail servers and web servers. These are both offers of service in exchange for certain restrictions on how you can use it that are known and understood by both sides.

      We can certainly argue over what those restrictions are how well known and understood they are. But I think it's crazy to argue that I can offer something, you can take that something, and there is no implied contract. It's clear that I don't mean you can do whatever you want. We both understand that.

    9. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoshHeitzman · · Score: 1

      "Any time one party makes an offer to another, and the other accepts the offer, there's at least an implied contract. That's clearly what's happening in the case of mail servers and web servers. These are both offers of service in exchange for certain restrictions on how you can use it that are known and understood by both sides."

      A server isn't a party (i.e. a server is not legal person).

      Even if you are talking about the person who is running the client and the person who is running the server, it's the the person running the client who actually makes an offer (i.e. give the resource at this URL or accept this e-mail and put in the specified box) and it's the person running the server that accepts it.

      --
      Software Inventor
    10. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      "Even if you are talking about the person who is running the client and the person who is running the server, it's the the person running the client who actually makes an offer (i.e. give the resource at this URL or accept this e-mail and put in the specified box) and it's the person running the server that accepts it."

      So where does the client get the URL from in the first place, if not from an offer?

      Your argument would make sense if the URLs just appeared in the mind of the client's human operator by divine inspiration. But that's not what happens.

      You contradicted your own point. If it's the human beings that make and accept the offers, and it is, then it's the server operator who acts first, making the offer, and the client's operator who acts second, accepting the offer.

      You are arguing correctly that the human beings make and accept the offers, but then argue that the offer is accepted before it is made! That's clearly impossible.

    11. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoshHeitzman · · Score: 1

      "So where does the client get the URL from in the first place, if not from an offer?" - lots of place. For example when some verbally tells you about a website that they don't own including telling you what the URL for it is, that person is not making you an offer and the website owner has had no contact with you. Such a URL does not come to you by way of an offer, but simply word of mouth.

      --
      Software Inventor
    12. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      You may have missed the "in the first place" part of my question.

      A server has to be set up before a client can connect to it. Whoever sets up the server makes the offer. Whoever connects to the server accepts it. I honestly don't see how you can make a coherent contrary argument.

      In this case, it's only human actions that matter. You can't say the server accepts the client's offer because this is a guaranteed committed consequence of human actions that have already taken place.

    13. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoshHeitzman · · Score: 1

      "You can't say the server accepts the client's offer because this is a guaranteed committed consequence of human actions that have already taken place." - no it isn't. The server can decline the offer and many sites do that and instead make a counter offer for the the client to provide valid credentials before the content will be transfered. Many sites that require client's to provide valid credentials only accept credentials provided by that same site and only provide the credentials after the client has first agreed to the site's terms of service. That's how web site owner's make offers accepted by client's.

      --
      Software Inventor
    14. Re:No such thing as a "fraudulent click" by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      We're obviously talking past each other.

  54. Re:A Merchant's Perspective & Article Critique by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Um.. this story is an advertisement?

    I see you keep reposting your sad story in response to other posts. You also never forget to include a link to the store. Clever work spammer, since people are modding your posts up I guess it's working. You beat the meat filters.

  55. Re:A Merchant's Perspective & Article Critique by rbanffy · · Score: 1

    That's exactly my site. 200 unique visitors a day, 80% repeating ones, most of the rest from search mechanisms.

  56. How many "false non-clicks" do they get? by Grail · · Score: 1

    I use Safari on Mac OS X. Every time I click an adword, it directs me to some intermediate page which then goes nowhere.

    So I wonder how many "false non-clicks" they get from people like me? And then how many of my "copy the URL and paste it into the address bar" workarounds are they counting as "false clicks"?

  57. Problems with their policy by mattr · · Score: 1

    Actually Google's policy is a bit screwy (if you are listening Google how about a reply?).

    I just automated a site called www.thecommunitypage.com (using perl/catalyst/fastcgi/linux/apache if you are interested) which used to be just static pages. They have a very nasty competitor who has pulled dirty tricks, including telling people his site is theirs, and I believe their programmer is in jail or some such. Anyway, Google apparently canceled his AdSense account with them because they thought he was trying to get extra clicks, presumably by clicking on ads manually. We think it was probably this competitor doing it, but even though he explained the situation to Google they wouldn't listen and so he still has no AdSense.

    At any rate, it seems quite easy to ruin someone's AdSense account and since my client wasn't doing it as far as I know, since Google didn't go after the people who are doing it they are partly to blame. Obviously AdSense is too fragile and it is too hard for them to investigate, which is why they have such a huge loophole and are losing all this money. They should roll out a new secure version of AdSense with cryptographic signatures and if they get complaints such as in my client's case they should cooperate by showing them what the offending log is, so they can attempt to prove it was somebody else. Maybe they have rolled out so much AdSense they are scared to change anything but it seems likely Google's entire AdSense portfolio is in fact quite fragile. It would make sense to scrap the current system and phase in something secure. That, or stop cavalierly breaking accounts. Disclaimer: I only know one side of the story but have a feeling it reflects reality. I don't make any money from AdSense or running the above site myself.

  58. I don't get it? by localman · · Score: 1

    How are they losing money? Meaning that they aren't charging their customers (i.e. adwords advertisers) for the fraudulent clicks? That's not losing money, that's not taking part in fraud. Am I losing money by not helping rob the liquor store down the street?

    The money they spend on actually detecting fraudulent clicks is lost, but it can't be $1 billion... and if it is I'd like to meet the handful of programmers that are pulling in $100mm a year. But really, whatever they're truly losing (maybe $1mm a year tops?) is just part of doing business in a world with a small percentage of dishonest people. It sucks, but all businesses have to deal with this.

    And it's not altruistic of them to bother detecting and discarding those bad clicks -- if they didn't do this, conversion rates would be lower, adwords would appear less effective, and thus people would pay less for it. It's just good business.

    Cheers.

    1. Re:I don't get it? by JoelKatz · · Score: 1

      "The money they spend on actually detecting fraudulent clicks is lost, but it can't be $1 billion... and if it is I'd like to meet the handful of programmers that are pulling in $100mm a year. But really, whatever they're truly losing (maybe $1mm a year tops?) is just part of doing business in a world with a small percentage of dishonest people. It sucks, but all businesses have to deal with this."

      It's not like money spent to combat employee theft or things like that. Nobody shops at a store because they do such a good job of stopping employee theft. People run their ads through Google in part because of Google's reputation in combating click fraud and because this gives them a higher conversion rate.

      Google makes money from click fraud.

  59. Detecting Click Fraud via Memes by broward · · Score: 1

    Real-life example of click fraud detected through a moderately unusual method -

    http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/Weblog?catname=%2FClickFraud

  60. Interesting Article On Fighting Clickfraud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    The guys at 360is published an interesting article in their quarterly bulletin talking about clickfraud and one of the solutions currently being touted for the problem. The newsletter is here. It appears that clickfraud has been big business for at least a couple of years.

    AG

  61. Ad-blocking by ajs318 · · Score: 1

    I aggressively block advertisements, including googlesyndication.com, without compunction. My screen, my rules and all that. (Since I had the Sky Plus put in, I don't even get adverts on TV anymore! I just wish I could get it to display the time in the VCR notation to which I have become accustomed, i.e. 20:30 as opposed to 8:30pm.)

    However, I'm thinking of making a "next-generation" ad-blocker which will download (and discard unseen) the target pages of advertisements, in the background, deliberately just to cost advertisers money. Because maybe if everyone clicked on adverts but then didn't buy the products, the advertisers would twig that adverts don't work -- and maybe then, they might stop doing it.

    --
    Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
    1. Re:Ad-blocking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And then, all those free sites you visit... such as slashdot, go away.

      Who do you think pays for them, anyways?

    2. Re:Ad-blocking by ajs318 · · Score: 1

      I neither know nor care who pays for them, and if they were not there I am sure I could get used to living without them. But I know this: I will never watch an advertisement, much less will I ever buy a product which I have seen advertised.

      --
      Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
  62. did nobody see the date of the article? by Errtu76 · · Score: 1

    Last Updated: Friday, March 2, 2007 | 1:40 PM ET Nice read, but not exactly 'news', is it?
  63. Re:A Merchant's Perspective & Article Critique by noidentity · · Score: 1

    You lost credibility by advertising your site at least twice in this thread. Is it that hard to hold back on promoting in every post?

  64. Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Walmart isn't out the money. The manufactuer or distributor is.

  65. Why do you brose the web at all, then? by paladinwannabe2 · · Score: 1

    If every time you see an add you suffer ~10 cents of annoyance, you must gain at least $0.50 of pleasure from most of the websites you visit (or have extensive adblock, or you're a total moron). Regardless, I don't have any sympathy for you- you're like an old lady complaining about how annoyed you are every time you see someone younger than 40, but you still go to the mall, the theater, and the pool.

    "They invade my life, in their small way, every time I see them, so I can't really reason with them as with a friend, or even a disinterested stranger"

    --
    You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
  66. Re:A Merchant's Perspective & Article Critique by sampson7 · · Score: 1

    Q: When does demonstrating actual experience with the subject matter of an article result in less credibility?

    A: On /.!

    Seriously, do you think /. users are a key target demographic for jewelry and beads? It was relevant. It was timely. It was interesting. It demonstrated that I have an informed basis for making my comments. Relax man.

  67. Google also flags VALID clicks as invalid by lordmage · · Score: 1

    Adsense is just crazy. I have no clue but after using them for our website and placing the banners in all the pages over a month and a half we had 7 dollars(hey.. its money right?). Then slam, they cut us off without explanation saying we were getting to many high "invalid" clicks and took all the money earned back. I have no idea how that could happen since no one I know of or associated with were doing any fake clicks. I know that we have thousands of downloads a month and so someone much be viewing the site. Its pretty sad that they did not even ask what style of website we had. In fact, i know that the first week we had to keep invalidating ads that were for competitors for our site.

    So it got me thinking, how could Google really know what is a fake click or not? clicks from same site a couple times a month? what if the site attracts same people over and over again (like /.) and over time they click? Could they even track Tor/Onion clicks? In the end.. Whatever method they are using has to be flawed.

    Google Adsense is not on my radar for making any money off a website.

    --
    I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
    1. Re:Google also flags VALID clicks as invalid by henke3 · · Score: 1

      Thinking about that nobody outside google knows the inner-workings of their algorithms and they are a company trying to maximize profit it seems unpropable that they would be loosing money because of fraud, more like the customers lose money because of fraud.

  68. Wait a sec by tacokill · · Score: 1

    You come into MY world, with your commercialism, and you expect me to care about what does and does not cost you money?

    I don't mean offense but honestly....who is to say what I should and shouldn't click? If a link is present, I may - or may not - click it. It is 100% up to me. In fact, it's so much my decision -- that you have absolutely no control or influence on my decision.

    I am sorry if my whims might cost you money. Perhaps you should find a different model or a different way of doing things. We (the internet) got along just fine before advertising and we will get along just fine if your ads disappeared. They won't, of course. But that is beside the point. The internet is based on an open architecture. Open and free (in the technical sense) access to information. That is the default. Not the other way around, as much as the commercial powers want it that way.

    I say this because it seems to be that the main goal of the commercial powers that be is: to change how the internet works. The rest of us are appalled at some of the rules and regs the internet has taken on since the commercial interests arrived.

    And just for the record, I am not anti-commercial. I just think it's funny when commercial interests complain that users aren't doing things "the right way" and it might cost them money. Boo-hoo. Go find another way to accomplish your goals.

    (note: sorry to pick on you...it's not personal. You just represent the "commercial" interests of the internet)

  69. Own stock? click on the ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Owning both Yahoo and Google stock, I always click on at least one ad per site to help the site owners revenues and Google/Yahoo revenues. If that's "fraud", well, tough.

  70. Re:A Merchant's Perspective & Article Critique by Larry+Lightbulb · · Score: 1

    Snap, pretty much the same as my site. Advertisers see that most of the clicks coming from your site are from the same people. They don't know whether it's people who are interested in the products, or just want to get you some money. And when Google gets around to looking they say it's the latter, and bye-bye AdSense. It's understandable that there's false positives, the trouble is that Google doesn't give any explanation so you can't investigate or put in anything to block them.