another click fraud story

[March2005]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/21/AR2006102100936_pf.html

From her home surrounded by cornfields in Dow City, Iowa, Jackie Park spends hours each day on her computer, earning half a penny every time she clicks on an Internet advertisement.

By the end of the day, she usually tallies a few hundred clicks, yielding about $300 a year. It's not much, but it adds up for the 35-year-old mother of five who became disabled three years ago.

 

[DNjet]

"It's like that kids' game, Whac-A-Mole, where you whack the mole one place and then we can be finding that mole somewhere else," said John Slade, director of Yahoo's click-fraud protection efforts.

I got a kick out of that....

 

[PapaStiz]

She is getting paid 1/2 a penny to click? She must need the money pretty bad. I would not do anything for 1/2 a penny. sheesh.

 

[denny007]

Here goes the theory about all click fraud comes from non-USA countries

 

[zzz]

Now, would the companies spend over $300 to go after that lady? And does she realize now that what she is doing is fraud (if her personal info is true)?

 

[Duckinla]

That lady is doing nothing illegal. There is no grounds for going after her. I'm not defending click fraud, that's just the truth. It's her computer, no one can stop her from clicking on ads that appear on it. Heck, you could go on your own sites tonight and click 1,000 times. No police will ever come to your door. The only thing you've done is violate your terms of service.

Here is why click fraud will not put the PPC industry under:

Big advertisers are pushing search engines behind the scenes to fight click fraud more aggressively, but many are afraid to criticize them publicly because they wield such clout. "Sixty percent of new customers come through Google. [Advertisers] can't afford to upset that channel, regardless of whether there's fraud," said Jason Clement, an associate director at Carat Fusion, a New York ad agency.

Online advertising is just too important to the advertisers. The market will just work itself out. You have to realize that even todays bids may be based on the assumption that 90% of clicks or 95% or 99% will be worthless. When you look at it that way, click fraud can just be factored in with the worthless clicks. And if some tried to move to Pay for Performance, they know publishers would shut them out in favor of the PPC advertisers.

 

[hunnam]

It will cost her more in electricity bills!

I have actually had problems with 1 of my sites where a user was running a proxy program to get his site further up the list but luckily the script found him out and when I contacted him he admitted to it saying "so what I make thousands a week" I reported him to Google but as yet nothing has happened.

 

[Jacksplat]

They should nail the guy who paid her.

Interesting article, I read all the way to the bottom and saw a google ad there. I take it "The Washington Post" doesnt control that page ?

 

[tas38]

So is Mutualhits.com, doing some thing wrong or not ???

I can see why people do it, I see all these people getting a 30% or better click rate making tons of money. Then sell the site and make tons more, and some of us only getting a few clicks from 100's, we make very little and can't even sell the site for much.

Even on this forum domains have been sold, for high bucks with very high click rates making big money. I don't care what ads you are using to get traffic, no way in hell your going to get a fair click rate that is very high. It just ant going to happen, but yet people fork out big bucks when they see the money it made for a month or 2.

 

[March2005]

So is Mutualhits.com, doing some thing wrong or not ???

From what I just read on their website, probably. Companies use pay per click ads to get real potential customers to their websites, not junk traffic. I'll click on your ads if you click on mine and we'll both make money is junk traffic.