ibiza - 4:16 am on Nov 5, 2003 (gmt 0)

>Do you think this ongoing click bot warfare in the affiliate space is going to poison the well of advertisers?

I do.

Imagine this:

I tight nit group of IRC script kiddies get together and decide they want to screw the system. Say that there are 25 people. And on average, they each control 10 machines with a bounce. Then they orchestrate fraudeulent clicks on each others site each day, or every other day. That means of those 25 people are getting 250 click per day.

Now if thier sites are about video games, they might be getting 15 cents a click. However, if they're smart(which they are), they'll pick a much more expensive topic such as ***********, which averages around $30 dollars a click.
$30 multiplied by 250 fraudulent clicks a day equals $7500 dollars a day.

Even if this took place on a much smaller scale, it would still be taking the system for a lot of money.

Edit: sorry. I decided to take that expensive topic out. I really don't want somebody doing this kind of thing. Some information is just too dangerous.