Ad click fraud

There was an interesting piece on The Register entitled "Google and Yahoo! accused of click fraud collusion". Advertisers pay Google, Yahoo, et al an amazing amount of money to place ads on these top web sites and search result pages (and blogs as well). Well actually, they don't say to place a lot of the ads, but they do pay when anybody clicks on them. This is the way it's supposed to work. Unfortunately, as the article notes:

Click fraud is a growing problem in the search industry. The practice has seen people - such as competitors or unhappy employees - click repeatedly on an ads to run up a bill for the advertiser. This can cost advertisers a lot of money and is difficult to track down.

There is no cost to me to have the ads displayed on my site or blog, but there would be an indirect cost or lost revenue by me if people abuse the "pay-per-click" ads to the extent that advertisers cut back on their ad budgets.

-- Jack Krupansky