Company Claims 80% of Facebook Ad Clicks Are From Bots 402
pitchpipe writes "A start-up company, Limited Run, claims that 80% of its ad clicks on Facebook have been coming from bots and will be deleting their page. Their Facebook page reads: 'Hey everyone, we're going to be deleting our Facebook page in the next couple of weeks, but we wanted to explain why before we do ... We built our own analytic software. Here's what we found: on about 80% of the clicks Facebook was charging us for, JavaScript wasn't on ... The 80% of clicks we were paying for were from bots. That's correct. Bots were loading pages and driving up our advertising costs.'"
If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't have javascript, you're a bot?
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
Since the ads require Javascript to be visible, yes. If you don't believe me just disable Javascript on Facebook and watch as all the ads disappear until you reenable it.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they're bots with credit cards, who knew. Me thinks the SEC may find this interesting.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the ads require Javascript to be visible, yes. If you don't believe me just disable Javascript on Facebook and watch as all the ads disappear until you re-enable it.
So, that's a feature, right?
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens when an antivirus scanner "pre-scans" the page at link to the Ad, in case the user clicks on it, in order to speed up their browsing experience?
Technically, it's not a bot causing the page to be requested, it can just as well be a real person's user agent
Re: (Score:3)
What happens when an antivirus scanner "pre-scans" the page at link to the Ad, in case the user clicks on it, in order to speed up their browsing experience?
Technically, it's not a bot causing the page to be requested, it can just as well be a real person's user agent
The question isn't whether or not a "bot" clicked the ad, the question is if a real person saw the ad. Your hypothetical scenario doesn't change the answer.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:4, Informative)
The question isn't whether or not a "bot" clicked the ad, the question is if a real person saw the ad.
The difference is if a bot clicked it, the 'click' is non-legitimate; an intentional act of deception.
If a human's legitimate user-agent clicked it without showing it --- then it's just a case of FB doesn't know if a human saw it or not, but you as advertiser pay for the clicks, regardless of how the user clicked it; whether they actually saw it or not is an academic matter then.
Re: (Score:3)
What happens when an antivirus scanner "pre-scans" the page at link to the Ad, in case the user clicks on it,
in order to speed up their browsing experience?
Technically, it's not a bot causing the page to be requested, it can just as well be a real person's user agent
True, but the company wouldn't want to pay for those pre-scans either, right?
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Funny)
Why? What are you trying to hide?
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously that he's a mass murderer.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Funny)
just a murderer... for mass murderer i think the requirement is no FB page at all.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Funny)
I think you can have a page, the key is not to use it. I mean, how much 'mass' are you going to achieve if your updates look like:
Just stopped at the Hillsdale Mall.
Picked up a Wetzel's Pretzel Dog. Tasty!
Killed this guy and his kids in the Nordstrom's bathroom.
Checked out Victoria's secret. Do we really want our children to see the models they display in the window?
It'll be hard to keep that up long enough to rack up a really good score without getting caught.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Funny)
Murderer!!!!
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Funny)
Or vagina?
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Funny)
This meme isn't doing too well is it? Just keep trying.
Yeah... vagina isn't doing to well on the Internet....
Re: (Score:3)
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Go figure.
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Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Insightful)
on about 80% of the clicks Facebook was charging us for, JavaScript wasn't on
You (a human) wouldn't be able to click on the ads if you couldn't see them in the first place.
FB doesn't require JS to display Ads (Score:5, Interesting)
Disabling Javascript doesn't eliminate FB ads. Try it. Turn off Javascript for all sites, clear cache, and load www.facebook.com.
I see ads, clickable ads that reach their destination. Looking at the page in the developer tools, there's no JS being executed (pause does nothing), and neither the Scripts nor the Resources tabs reveal anything resembling a script.
Further, all the ads link through the same base URI, what is likely a FB redirector script: https://www.facebook.com/ajax/emu/end.php [facebook.com]. I've written ad software for websites that doesn't use a bit of JS, and it appears that FB is capable of doing the same.
Reenabling JS shows the ads have both the base URI AND a mousedown handler with function reference of a similar name: a.emuEvent1.fbEmuLink.image.fbEmuImage
Finally, advertisers and the agencies that put their ads on FB don't have to rely on FB for click metrics, it's normal practice to redirect through a third-party agency that counts ad clicks.
It's possible that this company didn't understand the incoming requests. I'd love to see their analysis of User-Agent signatures and client IP addresses.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Technically, only 80% of Facebook users who click the ad, not 80% of all Facebook users.
Although I still think that's a very high percentage of technically literate users clicking an ad.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:4, Insightful)
So there's a contingent of noscript users who click on ads now?
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Funny)
The first thing I did after installing no script, was to white list all the ads... the internet is so bland without them.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, no. What percentage of real users do you imagine even knows there's an option to turn off javascript?
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
They then decided to put a logger on the site to track where the users were coming in from and what they were doing. From this, they determined 80% of the clicks from FB were bots.
Others have also done these types of analytics in regards to Facebook, with results in the 70%-are-bots range.
Here's a quote from the LA Times blog article (admittedly, it is pretty poorly edited):
In a Facebook status post as well as a blog posted Monday, Limited Run said it built its own analytics program, which found that 80% of its ad clicks were coming from users with JavaScript turned off, which makes it difficult for analytics software to verify clicks. The company added that in its staff's experience, only about 1% to 2% of clicks typically come with JavaScript turned off. As a result, the company built a page logger on its site, and that led the company to find that all those clicks were coming from bots.
I suppose all of this could be bunk, but it sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
you've never used wget have you?
1. Download the page the ad appears in
2. Download the javascripts using the referral page
3. grep the javascripts for links
4. hit all the links
Repeat.
So if you want to burn a specific company, you only click their ads. Since Facebook is the beneficiary of the ads, this is clearly facebook's problem. Go back in time to the ad scam eFront ran"
http://www.echostation.com/efront/
http://news.cnet.com/A-question-of-numbers/2009-1023_3-255030.html
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly.
Click fraud has been a huge problem. Even Google has had to put mechanisms in place to detect it and control it.
But none of these ad companies have a real strong incentive to do so, other than to maintain a reputation for fairness
among advertisers. Facebook? Fairness? Reputation?
In my day job we were a Google advertiser, and on more than one occasion we started seeing huge spikes in clicks
when we did nothing different on the web site or in commerce to warrant such an increase.
I called Google about it, and they ran a review of the clicks and dropped the actual click count to below what
it had been prior. They do respond, but you have to complain some times.
They are especially good at catching bots.
We've put a ceiling on the amount we will pay for these clicks, and when ever that ceiling is reached we get
a notice from Google. Unless we just started an advertising campaign in the trade rags (or something to generate that
increase in traffic), we usually just file another click fraud complaint to them and they invariably
we are the target of another E-Gold "get paid to click ads" scam.
(We always suspect, but can never prove that one of our competitors is behind this click fest to drive my ads off the
search results by over-running our limits, because they always seem to happen when they launch a new product).
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Interesting)
But none of these ad companies have a real strong incentive to do so, other than to maintain a reputation for fairness
among advertisers.
Actually, they have a strong incentive: staying in business. My wife runs her own business, and I help her with advertising. We track the source of every click through to a sale. Then we calculate the ratio of (ad expense)/(profit generated). For Google ads, this is about 1.6. For Facebook ads, it is about 0.2. Guess where we no longer buy ads?
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
Then we calculate the ratio of (ad expense)/(profit generated). For Google ads, this is about 1.6. For Facebook ads, it is about 0.2. Guess where we no longer buy ads?
Just to confirm: you're saying that for your wife's business, Facebook ads are 8 times more effective than Google ads.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
Just to confirm: you're saying that for your wife's business, Facebook ads are 8 times more effective than Google ads.
Gack! Sorry, I got the ratio reversed. They are eight times less effective. Thanks for catching this.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
Google answers customers, not consumers.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
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I doubt it occurred to him because it's unrealistic as an explanation for a click flood. Online advertising just isn't that effective.
Re:Or, You Know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure you could, but you are part of a small minority of users. A far cry from the 80% they are seeing.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
The ads are not just invisible. The space allocated to ads on the page is released; ads are simply completely wiped from the page. There is no white space on the page with hidden links where ads used to be. So there is no chance to click on such invisible ads.
And even if I would be able to click on such a non-exisiting link, I'd still be recognised as a real browser, as I do have Javascript enabled.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
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Aside from if you had NoScript you wouldn't see the ad (it appears it is JS generated?) how many people run NoScript but don't also run AdBlockPlus?
-nB
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA. They did the analysis. 98-99% of their direct-clicks had javascript. 0nly 20% of the ones from Facebook had javascript.
Sorry if I RTFA. I'll try not to next time.
Upshot: Facebook stock tanks again.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Funny)
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Facebook community when Limited Run confirmed that Facebook ad effectiveness has dropped yet again, now down to less than 20% legitimate clicks. Coming on the heels of a recent stock crash which plainly indicates that Facebook is losing investors' confidence, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Facebook is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Except FB charges for clicks.
So they are charging for fake clicks, which means they are engaging in fraud if FB is behind the fake clicks.
And even if FB is not behind the fake clicks, FB will have to severely reduce ad rates because they cannot deliver true clicks.
I stand by my assertion that FB will tank.
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I reckon it's more like Company B bot clicks Company A's ads.
I would imagine that could work really well on "campaigns" that have a limited spend to get your competitor's ads off the web for a while.
Either way, I'm also in the FB is a junk stock camp. It's being held aloft by a powerful combination of stupid and optimism.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Interesting)
And your competitors can invent extra TVs in all your extra, unoccupied rooms, and when they do, your ad bill escalates. These scenarios are so identical you need a scanning electron microscope with the gain set to 11 just to tell them apart. Apparently.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference is that someone, somewhere, for some reason, is artificially driving up per-click costs for companies that participate in Facebook's advertising schemes. You would be completely correct if the Facebook ad banner had a pre-determined, up-front cost, like TV and radio ads do.
If it's mostly bots, then the amount advertisers are willing to pay will go down in proportion to how much bot "views" go up (or as people simply grow insensitive to the ads, or don't have enough disposable income to buy the product, etc etc).
Market forces? Maybe over the long run, but that doesn't mean companies aren't getting SCREWED by this right now (it's blatantly unethical, and probably illegal). How many companies would just herp-derp along, paying 80% too much for their ad space? This company wisely put a very basic test in place (one that FB really should be implementing prior to sending the click; in fact, Google has been doing this for years).
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Why? This is a nonevent (even if it is true.) It's like proving that 80% of TV ads air when people are out of the room.
It's more like proving that 80% of some TV station's ads don't actually get through to the viewers, because a competitor uses special 'bot' technology to jam the signal.
Which has implications for the station, because they charge advertisers based on number of people viewing the ad (view count / click count).
If the advertisers are persuaded by this, they will demand a change of p
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Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen three popular explanations for "whose bots are they?" They're almost certainly a rented botnet composed mainly of compromised (usually windows) machines that are under remote mass control. I've read multiple expose where they show how you go to some .ru etc website and set up an account with them and rent out however many thousand machines you want to, and can do any of several offered services... ddos, backdoor installations, DNS redirects, proxy, and of course spam and click fraud.
Click fraud is run for one of three reasons:
1) drive up pay-for-click revenue for the site (facebook) - probably not a smart thing for them to do seeing as they're Suspect #1 because they have the most to gain, but already have a ton of cash
2) competitors trying to cost you money by driving up your advertising costs
3) competitors trying to cause you to hit your impression hit limit and stop displaying your ads
2 and 3 don't necessarily have to be your competitors, they could be random criminals trying to extort you, "pay us or we screw up your marketing".
I've seen several recent reports of (3) suspected due to finding a pattern of click fraud spikes at times when their competitors were doing a new product release. Renting botnets isn't free, and isn't without risk, and (2) probably doesn't have a very big net return. So (3) at the time of a new product release would appear to be a competitor's most prudent and effective time to buy some click-fraud.
And numerous posts above asking to post the IP addresses. really? Aren't you embarrassed to suggest that those would be helpful to anyone here?
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Interesting)
So over the years, I've probably transferred like $1.35 from Microsoft to Google as a result of my actions. Yay!
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Informative)
Nowhere near 80% of Facebook users has noscript active or otherwise disabled JavaScript; TFA says this number is about 1-2%.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
Read their actual page on facebook linked in the summary. Only 1-2% of their traffic were of the 'no script' variety (which is actually between 5 and 10% of their legitimate traffic), the 80% is bots they couldn't find the source of.
Now the things I'm not sure of here, is how much they were spending on advertising in the first place, and how many clicks they were getting. As part of their own writeup they say 2k/month on facebook advertising was way more than they wanted to pay for a name change. That's fair enough, but then how much were they paying? Which leads into the second point, how many clicks are we talking about here? If there are say 80 bots (or even 800) that just are always out there trolling pages, and you only get 100 hits, or 1000 hits or whatever, then sure, you're getting hit for 80% bots, but your cost has to be pretty low too. If you're getting a million hits and 800k of them are bots then there's a very serious problem, but then if you're getting a 200k legitimate page views maybe 2000 bucks a month is reasonable (depends a lot on what your business does).
Facebook does run, and needs to run bots on its service, if part of the cost of doing business with them is paying for when the bots are hitting your page to verify that you're in compliance that's fine, just as long as facebook is up front about how often those bots should hit your page and therefore how much you're paying. On the other hand, if it's a bot farm selling services to a SEO or something then you have a very different problem.
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No. (Score:3)
No, just that 80% of Facebook users fail the Turing test.
The remaining 20% ate the test.
Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? (Score:5, Funny)
Either a bot, or an intelligent user who won't read the adverts. Same result for the advertiser.
You're saying 80% of Facebook users are that intelligent?
Yes, but don't call them that (Score:4, Funny)
It's rude.
One day it might actually sink in (Score:3, Insightful)
Ad rotator services and click-throughs are WORTHLESS.
The internet gives you the power to directly connect with people and most companies still only understand advertising through broadcasting which is like tossing thousands of coins waiting for one to land on its edge.
I hope they've learnt their lesson before someone actually punches their monkey.
Re:One day it might actually sink in (Score:4, Informative)
I don't rely on them, but I have a handful of ads on my websites. They barely pay the bandwidth, but pay they do. If ads went away I doubt I'd drop my sites, but I would have to consider just what content I'd put up.
-nB
I'm not surprised. (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook is a TERRIBLE advertising platform. I've tried it, and had nothing but rubbish. In fact, I read an article about it not long after I tried it, saying that Facebook Advertising just doesn't work, and the only way they keep it up is by new people going 'Well, all these other people are advertising, I'm sure I can try that too'. Then they give it up as a bad job, but not before someone ELSE sees it and goes 'Hmm. FB Advertising'...
So, basically, I wasted $50, and learned that trying to appeal to the facebook crowd with something they have to pay for just doesn't work.
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It is not surprising that people don't see the ads. The traditional Facebook page (I have not seen Timeline) has four columns, three of which can be entirely ignored.
I find myself developing a unique "blind spot" for every common page with static ad placement. It's hard for me to find the ads even when I want to browse them.
Seen this problem before (Score:5, Insightful)
I've advertised on quite a few platforms (although have yet to try Facebook), and this is a common problem. In 2006, there were lawsuits against Yahoo and Google for click-fraud.. both were settled (I was included in the settlement for both.... got virtually nothing.. something like $20 refund for $100k in clicks.)
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/10294.asp [imediaconnection.com]
Google does a pretty good job, which is probably a large reason why they control such a large portion of the online ad market. Yahoo, depending on their platform of the week, can be hit-or-miss. They usually do a good job, but there have been a few times when it is just terrible. When Yahoo announces a change to their search.. watch out. (Bing's ad performance has been pretty good over the past couple of years at least)
I've seen some ad platforms that just ignore the problem, and it's easy to spend several thousand dollars and not get a single customer from it on those platforms. If facebook does nothing to control the problem, I'm sure there will be another class action.. probably won't cost them much to settle it, but might destroy the trust they have with advertisers, their stock price, and business.
Re:I'm not surprised. (Score:5, Informative)
Not to be rude or offensive, but you failed at it because you didn't know what you were doing. I know several people (for companies not themselves) spending six figures a month with facebook and generating sales numbers larger than that. It's working great for them. If I tried that I would have the same results as you until I learned what I was doing. To do it "right" it requires a custom software and understanding of all the analytics. I've asked them in the past about their budget for testing new ads and products. They will blow a couple grand just getting everything dialed in. Unless you're copying someone verbatim (and that would require hacking them and seeing everything on their back end not just their fb ads) $50 isn't even close enough to begin getting a campaign profitable.
Something else they will do is literally upload hundreds of different ads with different pictures, text, etc. Then they'll choose the ads that have the highest CTR (click through rate). Apparently one of the metrics fb uses for click prices is the CTR. If you're getting a crt of around .1% or higher you'll be getting some great click prices. Which is why they upload so many creativities. They have software that will take images, titles, bodies and generate ads for all the permutations and set very specific demographics for each set (a set would be the total permutations) of ads then upload them to fb. That allows them to see which ads work best for which demographics.
Click fraud is a huge problem though. A lot of ad networks will reimburse you for bot clicks if you can prove they were in fact bots and not real people. A lot of times it will be a small percentage and you eat the cost, because it's not worth the trouble of fighting for it. Think of it as theft if you were running a retail store, because that's essentially what it is. However, at 80% that's just crazy and this company has every right to be upset regardless of the amount they spent. They didn't get what they paid for.
After saying all of that. I'm sure if you had the money to burn you could figure it out and make a nice side income. You would have to treat it like any business though and expect to lose money for a while until you learned the ropes.
Re:I'm not surprised. (Score:5, Funny)
Shut up, Mark.
Re: (Score:3)
You're talking about traditional advertising and most online advertising doesn't follow that model. Online advertising is about producing an immediate result and that result is normally a sale, lead, etc. Branding is normally a secondary function.
Them bots sure are cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
With some Facebook bots starting at $30 [freelancer.com] to $50 [freelancer.com] to build, of course people are doing that. Facebook has bigger [yahoo.com] problems [zerohedge.com] than giving a crap about this company's complaints or requests. If our SEC wasn't a toothless corporate captive, the company would already have been halted for securities abuse.
I don't doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
We use adwords from time to time and had similar experiences a few years back with the "content network".
We analyzed our stats and even went as far as manually browse access logs. The hits we got were crap just like the sites most of the referrals came from.
There is a huge sesspool of scum on the Internet funded by leeching off ad revenue wherever it exists.
If companies are not on top of it and not careful about how they are spending their advertising dollars this kind of fraud could easily eat into a sizable chunk of their budgets and they might not even know it.
Do your homework before you throw your money away.
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The poor response rate on the content network is well known. Which is why the recommended advice, even from google, is to bid substantially lower on the content network.
The lower bid amount compensates for the low response rate.. so the cost per acquisition is similar to the search network.
Re:I don't doubt it (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no cesspool of scum on the internet leaching off add revenue. A cesspool of idiocy is more like it. People who take your money are not the problem - you are the problem. Advertising does not work. In the age of the internet, if you want to sell something, all you need to do is make it easy to find. Advertising does not do that. Advertising clogs the pipes with crappy messages telling me to buy without telling me what you are selling. List the damn product on amazon. Sell it on eBay. Make it show up on a search. And tell me what the damn thing is and how much it costs. These two things are the only things I need to know to make a purchasing decision, and advertising goes to incredible amount of effort to hide them from me. Let me find it. Tell me what it does. Tell me what makes it different from the alternatives. Is it the cheap one? The best made one? The one with feature X? The one with feature Y? The locally made one? Give me the damn facts. Stop telling me what I should think about it. Stop buying goddamned ads!
Re:I don't doubt it (Score:5, Informative)
So, how many times have you seen a vapourware product on this site and gone to their site to see:
A) How much it costs
B) Where to buy it
and been REALLY FUCKED OFF to find that this information isn't available?
Advertising, Slashvertising and posting 250 words over 6 pages of ad-infested blog wipe doesn't sell products. It sells hype and only marketing get rich off hype.
Here is the perfect advert:
For rent: NATALIE PORTMAN
Comes with HOT GRITS, NAKED.
NPORTMAN.COM, UPS delivery to continental US only, $200 per night. Availability is 1/per customer, per night, first come first served.
And I think that makes the word "amirite" necessary here.
Occam's Razor (Score:5, Funny)
When I'm bored... (Score:5, Funny)
I google for "whiplash" or "loans" and click on all the ads.
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OMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Advertising on the Internet is based on click-fraud. Where have you been for the last 10 years?
Follow The Money (Score:5, Insightful)
In practice it will be effectively impossible to identify the person-or-company who is *originally* responsible for this clickvertising pumping scheme.
But I know who I'd be betting on.
Re:Follow The Money (Score:4, Insightful)
why would it be impossible?
A court-issued search warrant is all you need. Seize and look through Facebook server logs.
Re:Follow The Money (Score:5, Interesting)
Who profits from BOTS pumping the FACEBOOK advertising system?
In practice it will be effectively impossible to identify the person-or-company who is *originally* responsible for this clickvertising pumping scheme.
But I know who I'd be betting on.
Someone shorting their stock would be the top of my list ...
But the IPO (Score:4, Funny)
Lack of Analytics (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC apparently they'd had some analytics/tracking code available at one point but *supposedly* they were worried about the data it provided being misinterpreted, so they withdrew it. They were still providing it, but only to their large corporate customers. Hmm.
One could still use specialised third-party tracking solutions, but (e.g.) getting it to work properly with Google analytics proved more complicated than it might at first have appeared, involving faffing about with funnels and the like (which I still don't think I got working properly, as I was distracted by more important things shortly afterwards).
Given that this was around the time stories were starting to come out explaining how Facebook- which everyone had assumed would be the holy grail of targeted advertising- was in truth delivering very poor results for advertisers, a cynic might assume that it really wasn't in Facebook's interest to make keeping close tabs on the effectiveness of its advertising easy for customers. This might or might not have been the case, but I'm pretty sceptical.
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't go there, porno image.
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:4, Informative)
Can a mod delete that link please? This is most surely against TOS and may get people fired from work if using /. at work.
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:4, Informative)
Can a mod delete that link please?
No.. Homey don't censor... Learn how to tune out.
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
And only an idiot clicks on random image links when they are at work...
Not against TOS here, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure what you are getting at. If a person opens a porn picture at work, in most cases they can be fired. Since this is not hosted a pr0n site, it will make it past many proxies and filters. All it will take is for someone to see their screen and report them, proxy/FW logs will do the rest.
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:5, Informative)
There's a pretty simple fix for that issue. Don't click on random links while at work. Geeknet doesn't give two fucks that you did something that stupid.
Each user, by using Geeknet Sites, may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent or objectionable. Each user must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with the use of any Content, including any reliance on the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such Content.
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:5, Funny)
How did you survive the days of goatse?
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Stretching exercises and a huge cork.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
You're an annoyance. Please delete yourself.
Re:WTF Apple?!? (Score:5, Funny)
How dare you hold him accountable for his actions!
Re:Javascript turned off? (Score:5, Informative)
No, but you also won't be clicking on the ads since they are no longer visible without Javascript.
Re:Nice finding, hope some could confirm (Score:5, Informative)
It's easy to confirm. Disable Javascript on Facebook and the ads disappear. It's pretty unlikely most people are disabling Javascript then finding alternative means to click the ads anyway unless they're a bot.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, if they're using NoScript they could have Facebook's scripts enabled but not this company's. That said, it's very unlikely that they'd be more than 1% or so.
Re:Cui bono? (Score:5, Informative)
Simple. Go to Facebook and disable Javascript. Ads are now no longer visible. How else other than through a bot or some extra effort do you guess that these ads are being clicked when the ads aren't visible?
Re:Cui bono? (Score:5, Informative)
"For the past week, I've been running a very successful small business via Facebook. It is called VirtualBagel and more than 3,000 people from around the world have decided they "like" it - despite the fact that it does, well, absolutely nothing. But in running this non-existent firm I have learned quite a bit about the value of those "likes" prized by so many big brands, and the usefulness of Facebook's advertising".> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18819338 [bbc.com]
Re: (Score:3)
What seems more likely is an near infinite army of bots, trying to steal information to build profiles, and going to every advertising link while they are at it.
Other internet advertising businesses have everything to gain by stealing from the biggest treasure trove of personal info on the net. And they everything to gain by driving up the costs of advertising on Facebook while providing no benefit.
Re: (Score:3)
Really. There are large costs associated with company name changes. That is not news. Anyone else starting a buisness would be advised to choose a name they really want before lanching, or pay the associated costs.