Fair Isaac Corp. of Minneapolis is a “fraud-detection specialist” which has released a study showing that Internet advertising put out by “online marketing vehicles” is subject to deceptive clicks that are
occurring far more frequently than network operators
acknowledge. These reports and studies seem to pop up all over the place. In fact, last year the Economist was bold enough to claim that “’click fraud’ might undermine the industry.”
And now the Wall Street Journal is running a story saying things like, “The study’s preliminary conclusions threaten to revive suspicions among
advertisers that they have been overcharged as part of a ruse known as click fraud… automated computer programs or scam artists who repeatedly click on ad links with no intention of buying anything.”
But all this media coverage and supposed suspicion doesn’t seem to be hurting Google and friends from moving forward rapidly in the online advertising sphere. Sure, this new study by Fair Isaac says click fraud is likely 10% to 15% of advertising traffic. That should upset me, right? And somehow it should be taken care of. But maybe it’s just collateral damage in an otherwise impressive industry.
I don’t know. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see how people react. But I’m guessing no one will care, as usual.
