fearlessrick - 10:51 pm on Oct 22, 2006 (gmt 0)

I find the statement that one in ten clicks (or more) is fraudulent to be beyond belief. 10% would be a very high figure because, as far as i can tell, the only way someone can benefit from click fraud is to be a PUBLISHER first, and then share the proceeds with the ad clickers, so, it would seem that Google and Yahoo could easily identify the bogus SITES.

As for me, being a publisher, if anyone was excessively clicking on ads on my site, the only beneficiary would be me (and Google, of course).

Somebody please prove me wrong on this.

Besides that, is it just me who thinks that, considering the absurd state of journalism in America today, the WaPo and BusinessWeek running these articles in the span of three weeks is somewhat suspicious?

Gee, who makes money on print advertising? And who makes nothing on web ads? Print is under tremendous threat from the web, and these are just attack articles. It's all about job security.

Basically, just sit back and watch the noise. The advertisers will win their suits, or G and Y will settle. They do need better self-policing, I will admit, but the claims being made by "analysts" seem spurious at best. I'd love to see their methodology.