bigjohnt - 6:54 pm on Apr 11, 2005 (gmt 0)

Click fraud is a cost of doing business, just like shoplifting, or shrinkage due to shelf rot.

Both G and O have been good to me with frequent refunds without even my notifying them. Other vendors not so good. LS REALLY bad. (4000 clicks.. mere hours after the auto-funding is complete, draining the account? Every month? Amazing, they must have more traffic than G, Y, MSN, and O at 2amEST. And We got all of it.)

The issue is, if the PPC vendor is really bad at fraud protection, the MARKET will sort it out. If you get a BAD ROI from a certain vendor, you drop the vendor. Caveat emptor - let the buyer beware.

If the PPC vendor has a strong interest in the long term viability of their own companies it would behoove them not to allow short term profits from click fraudsters. If they have a short term need for cash, in survival mode, some vendors might relax their standards and protections. And lose customers and market share. This is free enterprise. Just like MS*ft and their security issues. If it gets THAT bad, they lose market.

I imagine click fraud protection through third and fourth level partners is quite difficult. I know of two PPC vendors who had dismal fraud protection (we were getting tons of 3am EST traffic from Uraguay and Argentina for a site selling only to US citizens. They refunded money, and eventually traced the third level party and dropped them.

I estimate 10 - 15% of budget will go to fraud. Just like the farmer that plants a bit more, knowing the mice, deer, raccoons and other vermin will get some of it, its figured in.

Fraud is crime, and failure to prevent a crime is unfortunate, but it is not a crime unless it is KNOWINGLY allowed or condoned.

Personally, I am more concerned about SERP scrapers that attack my money words, send up a page, and the user clicks Adwords to go to my site. Now, THAT is something bordering on collusion. Perhaps a class action suit from advertisers on that topic - which can much more easily be policed - is in order?