This is Martin Fleischmann from MostChoice.com. Liked your review and just wanted to comment as we worked with BW for two months on the piece after suggesting it. There were points that did not make it in due to space that might have made some things more clear. For 3-4 years I worked on this behind the scenes — we saw crazy URLs sending non-converting clicks for a long time, complained about them to Yahoo and got some slow movement.

Want to be clear that we never do content ads due to obvious poor click quality; the issue has always been the integrity of the search network itself. Google allows an opt-out, but their network is mostly good (AOL, Earthlink, real properties). Zapmeta was a sudden spike that we saw quickly and to their credit Google took fast action (after our pushing. Yahoo is tougher since their search network has contained many fake search sites who only show expensive Yahoo listings as if their own. Of course they have huge incentive to send junk clicks, most only exist to push bad traffic to these listings.

The bad practices clearly should change; I told them years ago that this would end up costing them money long-term if it eroded the integrity of the network and diluted CPCs. That’s been happening, and it means that the thieves are siphoning off money that should be going to the real sites/clicks. These articles are the light & air that will accelerate the healing process, as Yahoo and Google will more quickly do what should already have been done to stop the bad schemes. Thanks.

What happens if I upload videos to Revver and have the PTR (or now PTP) folks play my videos?

Om?

The basic issue here is the lack of ability to establish the identity of the clicker. Not sure what can be done about this though?

Yet, Google continued to charge for “doubleclicks” even after they discovered the behavior added no value to their customers. Under pressure, Google finally changed their “doubleclick policy” and moved doubleclicks to the invalid click bucket.

Hmm, it seems all of those doubleclicks should have been refunded to advertisers, right?

Another question, when an advertiser requests a refund based on suspected click fraud and Google decides to grant the refund, does Google then do a search to determine if other customers were also affected by the same click fraud attack and automatically grant those refunds? What about Yahoo and Microsoft?

The real story is not the size of click fraud but what other invalid click behaviors are still considered “valid” by Google and yet add no value to advertisers (similar to doubleclicks)?

Here’s one to discuss: “Comparison shopping” click behavior where the user clicks on the same ad multiple times (for navigational purposes) over a period of a few minutes. Does that add value to the advertiser and should they be charged for those multiple clicks?

A plea to Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, please don’t be evil to your customers, unless of course your legal agreement with them allows you to be.

Why can’t people see a major scandal right on Google’s blogger site.

Open any blog site -

For example: http://celebdiary.blogspot.com/

and keep clicking on the top right link “next blog” and see what you get after 4-5 blogspot blogs. Randomized display of link farms !

This is Google site.

Click fraud + abhorrent privacy policies could equal a sharp decline in how people use and think about Google.

Liz – do you think that the SEC would ever step in an make Goog restate any earnings? Their argument being that Goog knew about the fraud that inflated their Rev numbers.

Stay on this topic – I think this is something to be watched..

Best, Brian