Les Jones

E-commerce > Business Week Looks at Click Fraud

The Pass-It-On Click Scam:

Internet ads can show up in the darnedest places -- and not always where the advertiser intended. Ads purchased for placement on Yahoo! (YHOO) and its partner sites ended up being used as annoying pop-ups, and in some cases were clicked on by automated programs -- not consumers, according to a recent study by Harvard researcher and spyware watchdog Ben Edelman.

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Edelman's work builds on a report he released in August that found Yahoo-managed sponsored links were being passed through several subaffiliate networks and appearing in adware-created pop-ups (see BW, 9/26/05, "For Yahoo, Mistrust is Popping Up"). This time around, Edelman says Yahoo not only has failed to remedy the problem, but he documents several cases where the adware and spyware programs actually create fake clicks on the sponsored links, running up bills for the oblivious advertisers.

See also:
- Google Settles Click Fraud Suit
- Joel Sposky on Google AdSense Click Fraud