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US Senator Attacks Failure To Crack Down On Google's Ad Fraud Problems (zdnet.com)
Democrat Senator Mark Warner "says Google is profiting off advertising fraud and has no interest in addressing it," reports ZDNet -- and he's laying part of the blame on America's trade commissioners.
Warner is just as mad about the FTC as he is about Google, claiming the FTC has failed to take action against the Mountain View-based company for more than two years since he and New York Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer first wrote the agency about Google's ad fraud problem. "The FTC's failure to act has had the effect of allowing Google to structure its own market," said Sen. Warner in a letter sent to the FTC... "While the company controls each link in the supply chain and therefore maintains the power to monitor activity in the digital advertising market from start to finish, it has continued to be caught flat-footed in identifying and addressing digital ad fraud."
Sen. Warner also called out Google for proving unwilling to address misuse of its advertising platform for the "rampant proliferation of online disinformation" -- referring to how various foreign entities have used Google ads to push political agendas, both in the US and other countries of the world. "As long as Google stands to profit from the sale of additional advertisements, the financial incentive for it to voluntarily root out and address fraud remains minimal," Sen. Warner added.
Sen. Warner also called out Google for proving unwilling to address misuse of its advertising platform for the "rampant proliferation of online disinformation" -- referring to how various foreign entities have used Google ads to push political agendas, both in the US and other countries of the world. "As long as Google stands to profit from the sale of additional advertisements, the financial incentive for it to voluntarily root out and address fraud remains minimal," Sen. Warner added.
I notice the article doesn't have any actual hard numbers, nor specific accusations.
There are a lot more Adsense users complaining about Google banning their accounts for the slightest of reasons than there are Adwords advertisers complaining about fraudulent clicks. If anything, Google already goes too far in preventing fraud, causing plenty of collateral damage along the way. There will always be at least a little bit of fraud, despite Google's efforts, but as long as it stays well below 1%, I doubt online advertisers are going to care. It's pretty sophisticated at this point and has become something to factor into the CPC. At some point, Google devoting ever more resources to fight click fraud is self-defeating, as the overhead from the anti-fraud efforts starts to cost more than the click fraud itself does.
Senator Warner, or most other Senators, don't seem to have bothered to do a cost/benefit analysis to see what the actual impact is on customers before spouting off against a company or suggesting additional laws and regulation, though.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
I notice the article doesn't have any actual hard numbers, nor specific accusations.
When I worked for an ad company it was between 15%-30% fraud. No one knew for sure, and the company pretended to care, made a token effort to stop it, but in actuality didn't care.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."