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False Ad Clicks Cost Google 1 Billion Dollars A Year

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the heaping-helping-of-fraud dept.

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.'"

2 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. 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)
  2. 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