Slashdot Mirror
Fraud Bots Cost Advertisers $6 Billion
Rambo Tribble writes A new report claims that almost a quarter of the "clicks" registered by digital advertisements are, in fact, from robots created by cyber crime networks to siphon off advertising dollars. The scale and sophistication of the attacks which were discovered caught the investigators by surprise. As one said, "What no one was anticipating is that the bots are extremely effective of looking like a high value consumer."
Where do I get one of these bots?
I don't want the money, I just want to make sure Madison Ave doesn't have it either.
Here's the thing. This is like a microeconomics modeled market. If the click rate is inflated by 25%, I'll wager the payouts compensate by being deflated by 25%. Advertisers are willing to pay for clicks, and will probably adjust their prices accordingly.
One of the few times I feel comfortable saying online that the free market will handily solve this problem, without worrying that I'll end up sounding like a lolberterian.
So in order for a website to remain free for the users use, they will need to post more advertisements to make up for it.
If you don't like advertising on you favorite site. Then you better find them a business model where they can keep running (as it isn't free for them) and feed their family's.
Otherwise just suck it up as the cost of having free access to their data.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Perhaps advertisers should finally move away from the current revenue system that pays per-click and should instead move towards a profit sharing system where the referring website receives a commission based on any sales or executed transactions.
I've been reading about click fraud for over a decade now. I don't expect it to go away under the current system.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
Seems like everyone in this article though it was a bad idea..but it looks like it does hurt them.