1. It is possible to measure click fraud. There are certain statistics that can be used to calculate its effect quite accurately, even if they can't be used to determine it on a per-click basis.
2. This may be true but in the end the value of a click is the choice of the consumer. People clicking accidentally on a Google ad is no different from people "accidentally" hitting the remote in the middle of a Bud commercial and missing the second half of the 30 seconds. These accidental clicks are factored into the overall effectiveness of the ad.
3. Most small business might be in the honeymoon, but not large businesses. Most of these are looking very seriously at the bottom line, and finding it's lower than they expected.
4. At the per-click rates customers pay for certain terms, yes I believe it. Compared with other forms of advertising paid search is turning out to be an incredible value. The main question is how much Google and Yahoo can continue to fine-tune the targeting to squeeze out that much more revenue.
--- not a Google fanboy as such, but convinced online advertising is where the money is at.
The question is, if it was available online for a small fee (say, 2 dollars) would you pay for it? Or would you still download it for free because you can?
The Chinese government didn't go to Yahoo and say "Here's the name of a political dissident; give us your data so we can bust him." They went to Yahoo and said "Here are the names of a bunch of criminals; we want their data so we can bust them. And if you refuse you're hindering the rightful prosecution of criminal offenders and we'll bust you too."
Even in the US law enforcement usually doesn't have to list the charges against the criminal when presenting a search warrant. It's up to the judge who issued the warrant to decide if there's enough evidence, not the discretion of the owner of the property being searched. Sure, after the fact the owner could complain of improper warrants, but that wouldn't stop the police from arresting their suspect first.
I don't like what Yahoo did either, but unless they were given a choice, I don't see any reason to blame.
Yahoo's had this service ever since they bought out Overture -- and yes, it's also free if you're a big enough advertiser to make it worthwhile. And yes, it adds a javascript snippet to the advertisers' websites. You've probably visited hundreds of these sites already without knowing they were collecting third-party data.
Sheesh. Add "Google" to any news story and all the world goes nuts. Personally, I'd wait until Google work out all the bugs before relying on it. It's still GIGO even when it's Google.
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1. It is possible to measure click fraud. There are certain statistics that can be used to calculate its effect quite accurately, even if they can't be used to determine it on a per-click basis.
2. This may be true but in the end the value of a click is the choice of the consumer. People clicking accidentally on a Google ad is no different from people "accidentally" hitting the remote in the middle of a Bud commercial and missing the second half of the 30 seconds. These accidental clicks are factored into the overall effectiveness of the ad.
3. Most small business might be in the honeymoon, but not large businesses. Most of these are looking very seriously at the bottom line, and finding it's lower than they expected.
4. At the per-click rates customers pay for certain terms, yes I believe it. Compared with other forms of advertising paid search is turning out to be an incredible value. The main question is how much Google and Yahoo can continue to fine-tune the targeting to squeeze out that much more revenue.
--- not a Google fanboy as such, but convinced online advertising is where the money is at.
You didn't really answer the question ...
The question is, if it was available online for a small fee (say, 2 dollars) would you pay for it? Or would you still download it for free because you can?
The Chinese government didn't go to Yahoo and say "Here's the name of a political dissident; give us your data so we can bust him." They went to Yahoo and said "Here are the names of a bunch of criminals; we want their data so we can bust them. And if you refuse you're hindering the rightful prosecution of criminal offenders and we'll bust you too."
Even in the US law enforcement usually doesn't have to list the charges against the criminal when presenting a search warrant. It's up to the judge who issued the warrant to decide if there's enough evidence, not the discretion of the owner of the property being searched. Sure, after the fact the owner could complain of improper warrants, but that wouldn't stop the police from arresting their suspect first.
I don't like what Yahoo did either, but unless they were given a choice, I don't see any reason to blame.
Yahoo's had this service ever since they bought out Overture -- and yes, it's also free if you're a big enough advertiser to make it worthwhile. And yes, it adds a javascript snippet to the advertisers' websites. You've probably visited hundreds of these sites already without knowing they were collecting third-party data. Sheesh. Add "Google" to any news story and all the world goes nuts. Personally, I'd wait until Google work out all the bugs before relying on it. It's still GIGO even when it's Google.