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June 27, 2006
The Spyware - Click-Fraud Connection -- and Yahoo's Role Revisited
In August I reported a startling number of notorious spyware programs receiving payments, directly or indirectly, from Yahoo!'s pay-per-click (PPC) (Overture) search system. Yahoo pays numerous other companies to show these ads via syndication relationships. So when a spyware vendor can't find advertisers to buy its ad inventory directly, the spyware vendor can show Yahoo ads instead. Every time a user clicks on such an ad, the advertiser must pay Yahoo. Then Yahoo pays a revenue share to the spyware vendor that showed the ad. My August article documented relationships between Yahoo and 180solutions, Claria, Direct Revenue, eXact Advertising, IBIS, and SideFind.
My August article covered "just a few of the ... examples I have observed and recorded." Since then, my Yahoo-spyware collection has grown dramatically. I now have many dozens of different examples of Yahoo pay-per-click ads shown within spyware.
My August examples demonstrate what I call "syndication fraud" -- Yahoo placing advertisers' ads into spyware programs, and charging advertisers for resulting clicks. But Yahoo's spyware problems extend beyond improper syndication. In my August syndication fraud examples, an advertiser only pays Yahoo if a user clicks the advertiser's ad. Not so for three of today's examples. Here, spyware completely fakes a click -- causing Yahoo to charge an advertiser a "pay-per-click" fee, even though no user actually clicked on any pay-per-click link. This is "click fraud."
Posted by dj at 08:56 AM | Comments (0)
June 07, 2006
Google Click Fraud Settlement Questioned
An attorney for plaintiffs in a California click fraud case against Google has submitted a lengthy list of complaints about Google's Arkansas settlement to the search engine and asked that they meet about problems perceived with that settlement.
Brian Kabateck of Kabateck Brown Kellner has not received a response to a letter he submitted to his Google counterparts about the proposed settlement in the Lane's Gifts v Google case. That settlement will come up for a final fairness hearing soon before the Arkansas judge, and right now, Kabateck doesn't think it's very fair.
The letter invited Google and their counsel to meet with Kabateck and other attorneys in the presence of a mediator to discuss "the many serious and substantive objections" they have to the $90 million settlement.
Posted by dj at 07:47 AM | Comments (0)
