Like everyone else, I've been disgusted by the perpetrators of click fraud. (Unlike many, I've been writing about it for a very long time, since back in the GoTo days. I recall being censured on JimWorld forum for discussing it, in fact.)
Every time a reporter or other "curious outsider" has grilled me on click fraud issues over the past couple of years, as a very active participant in successful PPC campaigns, but nonetheless utterly disgusted by the quality of some of the traffic we've been seeing I have (a) made sure that the reporter put it in perspective and didn't make it into an excuse to slam successful Internet companies (old media may have an incentive to smear new media after all); (b) have stuck to my line that it's not merely an economic issue or even an 'ethics' issue... it's a criminal matter and those who conspire to commit click fraud should see JAIL time. Usually when I start ranting about jail is when the questioner changes the subject. :)
That some click fraudster lands himself in jail is only a matter of time. For now, Google has initiated the first civil suit ever for click fraud. (That I know of.)
Others may have a different take -- as quoted in Olsen's article, respected colleague Jessie Stricchiola seems to believe that Google is doing this to distract attention from their inadequate fraud detection systems -- but I for one applaud Google for being the first to take action. I only hope this action leads to other, stronger, more decisive lawsuits that frightens off those who might conspire to defraud advertisers.
Who I do not applaud is those within Google, Overture, and Findwhat (leaving others out of it for now) who have hastily assembled content advertising programs without considering who they were getting in bed with. Given the incentive that exists to defraud, policing publishers is a serious business. It can't be done with 'smart pricing' alone, and it certainly should not be done in a "mop-up in Aisle 7" manner via the civil courts only when stuff gets out of hand. A better publisher pool from the get-go would mean this was a non-issue. In short, it seemed that AdSense was a bit out of control from the beginning and Google was pursuing this revenue like a drunken (definitely "not not evil") sailor.
The next twelve months will determine whether this industry is intent on breaking with the shady past of horrific GoTo partners back "in the day." Maybe it's time for Overture to now join the fray and throw the book at some of those rogue publishers who have perpetuated systematic fraud on Content Match advertisers.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't particularly like the fact that many of these email spam, click fraud, etc. type cases are decided in civil court. I'd like to see jail time! I mean if it's good enough for Martha surely it's good enough for some of these lot.
For the time being, Google still does not know the "real identities" of those named in the suit. Will be watching this one closely! Did I mention JAIL?!? would be nice?!?!
Could anyone weigh-in on how they go about detecting click fraud from their
end? For instance, I use 3rd party app for measuring conversions. Every few
weeks or so I'll collect the data into Excel and sort the referrals and IP
addresses in ascending order and start to look for IP's in the same class
block. Obviously this is not best way...
> Like everyone else, I've been disgusted by the perpetrators of click
> fraud. (Unlike many, I've been writing about it for a very long time,
> since back in the GoTo days. I recall being censured on JimWorld forum
> for discussing it, in fact.)
> Every time a reporter or other "curious outsider" has grilled me on
> click fraud issues over the past couple of years, as a very active
> participant in successful PPC campaigns, but nonetheless utterly
> disgusted by the quality of some of the traffic we've been seeing I
> have (a) made sure that the reporter put it in perspective and didn't
> make it into an excuse to slam successful Internet companies (old media
> may have an incentive to smear new media after all); (b) have stuck to
> my line that it's not merely an economic issue or even an 'ethics'
> issue... it's a criminal matter and those who conspire to commit click
> fraud should see JAIL time. Usually when I start ranting about jail is
> when the questioner changes the subject. :)
> That some click fraudster lands himself in jail is only a matter of
> time. For now, Google has initiated the first civil suit ever for click
> fraud. (That I know of.)
> Others may have a different take -- as quoted in Olsen's article,
> respected colleague Jessie Stricchiola seems to believe that Google is
> doing this to distract attention from their inadequate fraud detection
> systems -- but I for one applaud Google for being the first to take
> action. I only hope this action leads to other, stronger, more decisive
> lawsuits that frightens off those who might conspire to defraud
> advertisers.
> Who I do not applaud is those within Google, Overture, and Findwhat
> (leaving others out of it for now) who have hastily assembled content
> advertising programs without considering who they were getting in bed
> with. Given the incentive that exists to defraud, policing publishers
> is a serious business. It can't be done with 'smart pricing' alone, and
> it certainly should not be done in a "mop-up in Aisle 7" manner via the
> civil courts only when stuff gets out of hand. A better publisher pool
> from the get-go would mean this was a non-issue. In short, it seemed
> that AdSense was a bit out of control from the beginning and Google was
> pursuing this revenue like a drunken (definitely "not not evil")
> sailor.
> The next twelve months will determine whether this industry is intent
> on breaking with the shady past of horrific GoTo partners back "in the
> day." Maybe it's time for Overture to now join the fray and throw the
> book at some of those rogue publishers who have perpetuated systematic
> fraud on Content Match advertisers.
> Maybe it's just me, but I don't particularly like the fact that many of
> these email spam, click fraud, etc. type cases are decided in civil
> court. I'd like to see jail time! I mean if it's good enough for Martha
> surely it's good enough for some of these lot.
> For the time being, Google still does not know the "real identities" of
> those named in the suit. Will be watching this one closely! Did I
> mention JAIL?!? would be nice?!?!
On 11/22/04 8:41 PM, "Andrew Goodman" simply typed the following:
> it's a criminal matter and those who conspire to commit click
> fraud should see JAIL time. Usually when I start ranting about jail is
> when the questioner changes the subject. :)
> That some click fraudster lands himself in jail is only a matter of
> time. For now, Google has initiated the first civil suit ever for click
> fraud. (That I know of.)
I'm completely with you... Stealing is stealing... Even in cyberspace it's
cold hard cash... And it's wrong. I hope they kick their butts.
If we're talking about Google or Overture, I'm not sure this is the best way, because (a) presumably any "simple" tests of this nature, they would perform at their end; (b) it's not a sure thing that you've been charged for all of these referrals.
Anyway, that's just a quick point, I don't pretend to have the answer. When it comes to content-targeted clicks, I will say my suspicion level rises as I see more unwanted partner traffic, and partner URL's are usually embedded in AdWords referral URL's. Depending on what tracker you use you can eyeball "raw" referrals to see if a certain source ever converts, but the question is how much this helps us with no ability to "negative out" unwanted partners...
This is obviously an ongoing issue, not only of fraud but of control over partner traffic. (Let's assume for example that Gator exposure "works" on a CPA basis, but an advertiser wanted to opt out because they didn't want to be associated with it. This has been very difficult to do, and disclosure of partnerships, poor. Overture's practice of "bundling in" traffic from sources like Gator has been hotly debated at industry conferences.)
