pchristensen - 12:36 am on Oct 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

Nobody wants to see innocent people loosing their jobs. But LookSmart certainly had it coming to them. For months I have been alleging "click fraud" on the part of LookSmart. I have no actual evidence to support that they are directly involved in it, but they have absolutely no concern with the potential for "over-clicks." And when the company is in dire straights, I am sure they want every dime they can possibly get.

Just this past weekend I re-started my LookSmart ad campaign thinking that perhaps my previous experiences were not typical of the average user. In my e-mail this morning was a notice that my budget had reached its limit. What? After just two days and absolutely zero sales from those clicks? There is absolutely no way that my budget could have hit nearly 1,000 clicks in just two days when on Overture, I can go months and not reach the budget limit.

Something is wrong with Looksmart: either they are a part of the click fraud problem or they acknowledge its existence and refuse to build-in adaquate protection algorithms to guard against it. Either way, they are a bad company with zero ethics to allow it to continue.

Back during my first bad experience, I demanded to see a report of all IP addresses clicking to my site. Answer? "No way...it's against our company policy." Fine. LookSmart and its policies can die a painful death: they deserve it. I only hope that their workers can find alternative employment before the entire company implodes.