martinibuster - 10:56 pm on Jan 28, 2009 (gmt 0)

Oh goody, the sky is still falling. Thanks for the update, Click Forensics. See ya' next year. :P

A fuller report is here on WebGuild [webguild.org].

Here's Click Forensic's CEO explanation for the rise:

According to CEO Tom Cuthbert, three components contributed to the rise: more dollars filtering into pay-per-click (PPC); increased competition in the click firm industry; and rises in cybercrime and botnet activity resulting from the poor economy.

1. I thought the reason Google was laying off thousands of workers was because there was a decrease of dollars entering PPC. Add to that the reports over at the AdSense forum where the plunging economy has coincided with a precipitous drop in earnings for many publishers, it may be fair to assume the opposite is occurring.

2. Google has removed thousands of arbitrageurs from it's program. That would indicate less competition, not more. There have been several low profile cullings throughout the year where many publishers were booted out for violations of the terms of agreement, and many others have been given the chance to change their web pages to bring them into conformance with Googles terms.

3. Is botnet activity really tied to the poor economy? Does it go down when times are good?