Google's Click-Fraud Crackdown 201
An anonymous reader writes "Wired reports that Google is making some effort to put a crack in the practice of click-fraud. Because of the pernicious abuse of the company's advertising business, it simply can't be sure that anyone is actually looking at the ads. Bruce Schneier talks about the problems of ensuring that people are really people, and Google's solution." From the article: "Google is testing a new advertising model to deal with click fraud: cost-per-action ads. Advertisers don't pay unless the customer performs a certain action: buys a product, fills out a survey, whatever. It's a hard model to make work — Google would become more of a partner in the final sale instead of an indifferent displayer of advertising — but it's the right security response to click fraud: Change the rules of the game so that click fraud doesn't matter."
that's bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:that's bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:that's bad (Score:3, Insightful)
CPA good for google, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Small publishers, however, will likely suffer. The vast majority of click-throughs on text ads result in no sale. Yet publishers still get paid for it. The only way this would balance out would be for the payment to publishers per action to go up. That would be fair. But I think the small bloggers who like to use adsense will lose revenue from this model.
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
What monopoly in search? Google has less than 50% [searchenginewatch.com] of the market for search, and they have a significant competitor in Yahoo search marketing (used to be called Overture) not to mention the banner ad people such as doubleclick, although I couldn't find any comparison of the services relative market share.
Google has not attempted to artificially raise the barrier to entry of the search market, unless they are involved in something i am unaware of, you can get some clever people together, some big hardware and a gigantic pipe and make your own search engine or pay per click advertising. Same for payment processing; Google are not engaging in dumping of Google Checkout, it is infact more expensive than it's biggest rival Paypal.
(Full disclosure: I have used paypal to pay for things, google & yahoo to search, and I block all adverts with adblock plus and filterset.g)
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
By ignoring this type of advertising, Google is basically giving it away for free. Sure, it's good for advertisers, but I'm not so sure it's good for Google.
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2)
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Semi-true, but definitely arguable. A strong support in your favor is that most google ads are text based instead of image based. Going to a site 50 times and seeing the word "Ford" will not produce the same effect as seeing the Ford logo 50 times. Google's ads don't really create brand recognition, so I agree with your point.
This is where online advertising has deviated significantly from *most* other forms of advertising. Other ads are in place
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
I once saw an interview with A-B's NASCAR liason. He was asked how much beer he thought they sold as a direct result of the $40 million a year they pour into stock car racing.
He responded that as far as the company knew their sports sponsorship did not have a direct impact on selling a single can of beer, but that wasn't the point, because advertising in expectation of driving sales is only a subdivision of marketing (and in
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2)
Let me get this straight -- are you saying they *don't* give sugar to the beer horse?
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
The only way I could see that working is with mandated use of the Google payment system perhaps, so they could generate some link between ad clicks and purchasing activity. That seems a mighty steep hill to climb, however...
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:5, Informative)
The cookie links the click to the sale. And there is value to the advertiser as well: Google can then help you track which ad resulted in a sale, and which keywords it was linked to. (So you don't have to buy an expensive but poor-return keyword.)
(I may be mis-describing: Check Google's docs to be sure.)
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2)
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
You are in the market for Widget X. While on a website about all things Widgety, you see an Adsense ad for a certain brand of Widget X. You click on it, you like it, and bookmark the site. Because you are a smart consumer, you shop around trying to find the best value for Widget X. Upon completion of said research, you decide the original site (the one found with adsense) is the best deal, and you go to that site and purchase (this is now a week later than the original click-
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2)
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2)
If they force advertisers to use Google's Checkout system they could enforce it better but I think that's dangerously close to "leveraging their monopoly to get into new markets" that we like to chastise Microsoft for.
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2)
2. The value-added services Google gives from the data, which are worth nearly as much as the sale itself to some advertisers.
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2)
When Google bought out Urchin and turned it into Google Analytics [slashdot.org], they integrated it into their AdWords system. They'll tell you what Ad and search keyword got people onto the site and where they went once they got there. From there, you can define a series of hoops that you're looking for a customer to go through (say checkout -> credit card entered -> confirmed checkout) and it'll tell you how far people make it and correlate it to those Ads and keywords. Cool for webmasters, not so cool if your ti
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2)
(http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls =org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=WidgetsF orSale.Com&btnG=Google+Search)
LOL!!!How funny- if you go to the website, it seems to be about "email marketing" techniques!!!*spam* LOL!
I have to know, was this known to you beforehand and posted as warped humor, or as I suspect, you were just going for "generic website" as an example. If it was a warped sense of humor....Well Done!, if not,
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2)
Re:CPA good for google, but... (Score:2)
Good shot!
This was news 10 years ago (Score:2)
Re:This was news 10 years ago (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This was news 10 years ago (Score:2)
Doesn't solve the wider problem (Score:2, Funny)
This approach may or may not solve click fraud, but it certainly doesn't solve the wider problem of proving that it's a human performing some action instead of a computer - and that one definitely needs to be nailed.
There seem to be at least two alternatives - you could use a chain-of-trust type model such as TCPA to be able to remotely prove that [a] this packet is coming from [b] this program that is [c] digitally signed by this party who [d] asserts that it only accepts input from humans when run on [e
Re:Doesn't solve the wider problem (Score:5, Insightful)
They spent money because of your ad. So you can afford to pay for the ad.
And if an AI was the one who spent the money, great. As long as their credit card works.
Re:Doesn't solve the wider problem (Score:3, Interesting)
This works now... but what happens when that scheme is broken?
ie:
Step 1: Script buys product from ad link.
Step 2: One minute later, script cancels said or
Re:Doesn't solve the wider problem (Score:2)
The company advertising has no reason to commit click-fraud. An AdSense partner who has ads on their site does, and your competitors do, but you don't. If you let people cancel their sale immediately via a scriptable interface, you've got bigger problems. (Yes, it should be easy to cancel a sale, but not that easy.)
Re:Doesn't solve the wider problem (Score:3, Insightful)
If, at that point, you start to have trouble with people cancelling, that's easy: You require them to call in to cancel. You may find that in the real world, this is already the case, if you can cancel at all. By the time a bot can fake a phone call, we'll have other problems and solutions.
I'm not sure if it's possible to reverse credit charges without a phone call, but again, if an automated
Re:Doesn't solve the wider problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Since Google has no control over the advertisers... Google just must believe what they tell Google.
Re:Doesn't solve the wider problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Define an action. (Score:2)
Here's the problem -- how can Google implement this in such a way that they retain enough control to know whether the item was bought, survey was filled out, or whatever? What's to stop someone from just setting up a paypal donation link and calling that their "purchase", but then having the rest of the site be a sales pitch for a sale which is actually handled somewhere else?
Google would have to take over the whole process of
Re:Doesn't solve the wider problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't solve the wider problem (Score:2)
I actually don't see any real difference between the two "alternatives" you mention. Both of them boil down to proving that a request was generated by some (presumably tamperproof) hardware. That's fairly difficult, especially when you're transmitting your packets across a channel that can't be controlled.
We actually already have these "proof of life" systems -- CAPTCHAs -- which are used with varying success on blogs and the like. They have weaknesses, but that's mostly weaknesses in a particular kind
Re:Doesn't solve the wider problem (Score:2)
Actually, as computer power increases as well as the complexity of pattern recognition algorithms, this will be harder and harder to tell a human user from a computer.
Eventually, we won't be able to tell the difference in 20 years or so...
On the bright side, sentient computers might way to make
Biometrics to record clickthrough... (Score:4, Insightful)
To record an ad impression? Let me get this straight. You're honestly suggesting that users submit their fingerprint to verify they've seen your ad and you expect people to submit to this? Are you high?
I mean, it's inconvenient, and invasive! Now if you can just find a way to make it really uncomfortable for the user while they're at it and you'll have achieved the prostate-exam trifecta that everybody shoots for when they want to pitch a new product idea.
Terrible Idea (Score:5, Interesting)
I also get a ton of impressions -- most of my ads have a click through rate of under 5%. Considering that 95% of the unclicked ads still form a brand impression, I'm even more satisfied (free advertising, basically).
AdWords advertisers who complain are just idiots. I've run TV, radio, magazine and newspaper ads for years and never had this kind of ROI.
I'm also an AdSense publisher, and I don't see what people bother with fraud. For the few bucks you make an hour trying to defraud the system, you can do a better job selling something online and using AdWords to drive business to you.
Re:Terrible Idea (Score:3)
Re:Terrible Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
All you need is an internet connection, some proxies, greed, and a "they're rich americans (because they exploit everyone else) so they deserve what they get" mentality.
How do I know this? I'm an adwords advertiser, and I tracked down one of the site owners who was doing a fair amount of fraud on one of my terms. One of the proxies he used had an X-Forwarded-For header, and I found his IP in an IRC log, and finally managed to track him down on IRC. I pretended to be a fellow fraudster, and we compared account screenshots. The guy was very proud that he was making over $4000USD/mo. His sites were simply wikis with stolen content (it's easier to make pages for a specific term that way, I guess). He did the clicks himself, and had a proxy program that simply took from a list of proxies and picked a random one every page load. He actually sat there for several hours a day clicking, and made about $40/hour to do it.
For some advertisers, it is a huge problem, especially when paying $10+ per click.
Re:Terrible Idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Most terms I pay for are in the nickel to the buck range, and again, I set my advertising budget with about 70% of clicks not converting to a sale or an interested customer. The fraud is irrelevant for me and for almost 100% of the people I help in setting up AdWords campaigns.
Congrats on catching the fraudster, th
No Problem? (Score:2)
They have a variety of interesting 'services', including one where you can "Google Bomb Your Competition!"
This sort of thing has successfully prevented me from even considering adwords or adsense. I get enough traffic from posting on blogs and slashdot
Re:No Problem? (Score:2)
Re:Terrible Idea (Score:2)
Dangerous ground (Score:4, Insightful)
Fraud? Or a flawed business model? (Score:4, Interesting)
So if I do four shift-ctl-clicks (open in a new window, keeping current window active, I love Opera), am I a bored 'net surfer, or have I just committed Click Fraud? For the advertiser, is there really any difference?
Re:Fraud? Or a flawed business model? (Score:2)
Re:Fraud? Or a flawed business model? (Score:2)
I remember when this was all fields (Score:3)
Re:I remember when this was all fields (Score:2)
Most of the time when I've encountered/used the above, it was more about the author wanting to keep their work from being sold by greedy strangers than greedily grabbing the nickels for themselves. Not everyone wants to find their stuff on eBaumsworld or something making ad-money for somebody e
Re:I remember when this was all fields (Score:2)
IP Block (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not regular ads ? (Score:2)
Just needless complexity in the current system.
Wrong Direction (Score:5, Interesting)
Making the burden on the content creator heavier and more onerous before they get their dollar is not the way to go. The middlemen and the ad buyers are getting too much for too little in return. New models need to be developed. I'm in favor of the old fashioned sponsorship: flat fee so it's a predictable expense for the ad buyer, and predictable income for the content provider. I'm sure there are other ways to charge advertisers what their advertisements are worth, and increase their effectiveness at the same time.
This new Google approach doesn't deliver.
SoupIsGood Food
Re:Wrong Direction (Score:2)
victim of click-fraud (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:victim of click-fraud (Score:3, Insightful)
Not a good thing for Google (Score:2)
This isn't a good thing for Google. It turns the fraud situation on it's head. Having written software to try and do it, let me tell you it's hard to tie a sale back to an advertisement impression and/or click-through. Most of the ways involve either trusting the guy who'll be paying, depending on cookies to persist or maintaining a lot of server-side state to track an individual over the long term. The only case that's simple is where the viewer clicks on the ad and then performs the action in the same bro
Google Needs to Shape Up (Score:2, Interesting)
Google really needs to fix their fraud-detection systems, and this idea isn't going to fly with most people. Either put up with a certain percentage of fraud, or risk banning those who don't deserve it ... Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Maybe a convenient push for GooglePay? (Score:4, Funny)
2. ???
3. Profit!
CPA only works when there's a trackable action (Score:3, Insightful)
(And given the economy of Google ads, I'm basically paying about 50% of the Adwords cost because I get about a 1% click-in, and about 1% click-out, and the Adsense click-out pays about half of what an Adwords click-in costs me. So obviously I can't use Adwords long-term, but it's okay for building initial traffic, and incidentally for making sure my site got quickly indexed - thanks to daily visits by the Adwords robot.)
Now, in that model, as with many other businesses who are not selling online, it becomes impossible to track CPA, and the CPC is really the only valid business model. And this is true of millions of link-farm sites (not that I'd mind most of THEM disappearing).
As others have mentioned above, advertising is about much more than simple action-tracking - if you put a favorable ad in front of a potential customer enough times, it will build brand awareness and eventually convert. But not in enough time to make CPA useful, and usually in ways that cannot be directly tracked anyway.
Sorry, but I think CPC is going to be around for quite some time. And I'm sure Google is well aware of these dynamics.
Impression ads (Score:2)
This model will fail for impression ads. And impression ads are important for a large number of products and services. For many things, from mundane things like consumer goods, to advanced business services, the products and services are not purchased or acted upon immediately. Impression ads just keep the name, logo image, or musical jingle, in the minds of the readers. In TV they call them viewers. In radio they call them listeners.
Obviously, in media like TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines, impre
Re:Impression ads (Score:2)
But how relevant is this? Your "impression ads" are not covered by pay-per-clicktrough either, aren't they?
And that is what the new model attempts to replace or extend.
What you are saying is like radio ads are failing because they cannot convey an image of the product. It is just a different situation, different solution for a different problem.
Stupid question (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not real familiar with h
Re:Stupid question (Score:2)
Fraudsters "own" farms of millions of poorly managed PCs in the average household that they can control to do anything they like, including sending spam, visiting webpages (clickfraud) and spreading worms to infect other PCs to join the farm.
Re:Stupid question (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stupid question (Score:3, Insightful)
We finally f
Click Fraud down - Credit Card Fraud Up (Score:2, Interesting)
The profit is in the percentage the advertising website gets, not in the goods.
Re:why do they care? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:why do they care? (Score:3, Insightful)
> if they're that concerned about it.
Because most people *don't* cheat, which means that Google would be making less money from everyone because of a tiny amount of fraud.
I like to think, though, that I've helped cause this problem by right clicking/open in new tab on ads I have no interest in. I also fill in questionaires with random answers if I have to complete them to proceed into an otherwise "free
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Well, you haven't. It's people that do it thousands of times that matter. Like the fine folks at clickmonkeys [clickmonkeys.com].
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Re:why do they care? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are trying to protect the value of their product.
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Re:why do they care? (Score:5, Insightful)
Click-fraud hurts Joes Pizza because hey's paying Google to show his ad to potential customers, but during click-fraud, no-one is actually seeing it. He's paying for nothing. Google just takes a cut of what Joe paid, and passes the rest on to the websites that actually displayed the ads (or claimed they did).
Google only cares about this because if Joe thinks he's paying for nothing (i.e. no real people are actually seeing his ads, and all the "clicks" he's charged for are actually fraud), he might stop paying Google to farm out his ads. If that happens, Google loses their revenue stream.
Lots of clicks are good for Google, they get to charge Joes Pizza more. But they're only good if Joe thinks he's getting his message out to lots of people.
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Re:why do they care? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:why do they care? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why do they care? (Score:5, Informative)
For comparison, our conversion rates:
Google Search: 3.5%
Google adsense: 0.25%
I don't know what other companies are doing.. but I wouldn't be surprised companies are considering dropping adsense. There is just to much fraud.
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Let's wrap some content around that "woohoo"
No more "free" content on the Internet. Woohoo!
(content has to be paid for somehow)
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Re:why do they care? (Score:3, Insightful)
1.) Because their company's culture is geared towards providing the best user experiences it can and that whole "Don't be evil." bit.
2.) Even if you think all of that's a crock, Google will make more money selling online advertising if they aren't continually making ~$90 million or so click fraud settlements periodically . . .
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Charge less works for a while, but the price per-click is already so low it's hardly worth mentioning in many cases. You need to charge for something that is of actual value to the advertisers.
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Google isn't the only game in town and they know this. If Google can provide some assurance that every click on an ad is a real person, advertising with Google suddenly becomes much more valuable than advertising with another company that can't provide that assurance.
Re:why do they care? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Don't worry about your advertising dollars, there's millions of people (some of them working for google). Thinking up ways to track, record and learn everything there is to know to someone and have absolute control over what business's get utilise or take advantage of this information.
However watchout ! Once someone actually cracks this and comes up with the model of all advertising models, that company will have the power to help you destroy your competition,
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Isn't this the case for any kind of advertisement? Logarithmic growth, anyone?
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Re:why do they care? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
Be.
Evil.
Re:why do they care? (Score:2)
I hope this also applies to the "please click on my ads" blogs.
Re:Doubtful... (Score:2)
Re:Doubtful... (Score:2)
Re:Get a free IPod if you click on this google ad. (Score:2)
https://checkout.google.com/ [google.com]
Re:Get a free IPod if you click on this google ad. (Score:2)
Re:Flawed plan (Score:2)
You've heard of cookies? This is how affiliate systems work. Part of the deal between publisher and advertiser is the duration of the cookie (i.e. action required within x days of click).
Re:Suspensions of Google accounts (Score:2)
Do you KNOW this, or are you guessing?
I use dialup internet access so the IP address I have when I check my Google Adsense account would match heaps of people.
Re:But I like click fraud! (Score:2)
If Google loses advertisers, they lose advertising revenue. If Google loses advertising revenue, Google goes bye-bye.