article [today.reuters.co.uk]
"A seller of online marketing tools said on Wednesday it sued Google Inc., charging that the Web search giant has failed to protect users of its advertising program from "click fraud," costing them at least $5 million."
Doesn't surprise me this finally happened. They are going for a class action suit.
[edited by: Woz at 11:32 am (utc) on July 1, 2005]
[edit reason] Fixed Scrollism [/edit]
I was contacted by 2 click fraud companies last week promoting their services..I spend a significant amount on Google and overture and this is a paraphrase of what they told me..
I get these emails every day. Sometimes from the same companies over and over again. I consider this the equivalent of 'make your site tops in the search engines' -- it's spam.
If one has to resort to these marketing tactics, then they probably need a better offer or marketing strategy.
Beware of those who offer you the world for free - you are giving Google their info (or their contacting G on your behalf), and thus you're also trusting your relationship with an inventory provider to someone else.
although I think a full demise is highly unlikely
True, but if a stock is seriously overvalued (such as Google), and then investors find that as much as 20% of their revenue is being generated from potentially fraudulent sources (which could happen if a larger media outlet carried such a story), then the demise is likely to be pretty significant, although not even to kill the company - at least not in the short term.
Once they have that much traffic though, who knows! Does anyone here think there could be an antitrust case or something against Google like there was against Microsoft because it is considered a monopoly?
True, but if a stock is seriously overvalued (such as Google), and then investors find that as much as 20% of their revenue is being generated from potentially fraudulent sources (which could happen if a larger media outlet carried such a story), then the demise is likely to be pretty significant, although not even to kill the company - at least not in the short term.
Well, the WSJ has carried front-page stories on click fraud. That doesn't seem to have cooled off Google's stock price, although it has not (yet) risen as high as some analysts think it can go. (If they continue to beat revenue/earnings estimates the way they have, it could go higher.)
I have not seen a CNBC or Bloomberg report on any search engine or other ad publisher that mentioned click fraud.
Once they have that much traffic though, who knows! Does anyone here think there could be an antitrust case or something against Google like there was against Microsoft because it is considered a monopoly?
I suppose anything is possible. At present, Google hasn't done much to warrant an antitrust case against it.
They are the world's largest media company and they have basically one product - paid search. AOL Time Warner does 10 times the revenue and though they've had growth and retention issues, it's not like all their revenue could go away in a day like Google's could if Advertisers really got up in arms.
It's a chimera and it can't continue forever. Google will always be with us, and will probably always be the largest search engine, but its stock price will fall and it will fall precipitously. I would not at all be surprised to see a triple digit loss in a week under the right circumstances.
I'm not rooting for it; it just looks inevitable.
Are you a laywyer Gregbo? Or just talking like you are one? To think we know 1% of Google's business activities
is arrogant and naive.
FWIW, my general opinion of click fraud is the same as ogletree's. PPC is the problem. It is a poor business model from a standpoint of its vulnerability to click fraud. I think that most experts on the Internet and WWW protocols would agree with me. OTOH, if there are advertisers who still defend PPC on the basis that it is more "accountable" than any other media advertising, they are basically saying that they are willing to live with whatever click fraud cannot be tracked.
And how much information about the inner workings and business development deals do you think Google releases?
Let me tell you...VERY little.
Google refunded several thousand dollars (in click credits of course) the first time we showed them the data.
The last time we gave them our fraud data they wouldn't accept it........ said they had already detected the fraud.... which they didn't.
They are going to have to start doing more refunds or this will end up bad for them...
We are losing thousands a month......
heyday
I would count on getting consistent credits no matter how much proof you have/data you forward to them. They are pretty good at giving 1-time credits...after that it's is much more of an uphill battle to convince them of fraud.
