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Advertisers Decide Google Pocket Change Not Enough In Click Fraud Settlement
from the a-big-mess dept
A year ago, when a bunch of advertisers sued the various paid search providers for click fraud, it was hard to take the side of the advertisers. The search companies clearly know that they need to minimize clickfraud, or risk losing business. However, a certain amount of clickfraud needs to be expected. There's simply no way to expect the paid search providers to ever be able to completely eradicate clickfraud -- without also doing away with pay-per-click advertising. In fact, if anything, the advertisers should be upset with the individuals and companies actually doing the clickfraud. Of course, they're tough to track down, so it's much easier to sue the big money-making search engines instead. That said, it still seemed odd a couple months ago to hear that Google had somehow settled the clickfraud class action suits for a mere $90 million, given how much advertising is done on Google. That seems like pocket change -- and sounded like the type of deal that some class action lawyers jumped at, so they could get their easy cut (in this case, $30 million). So, it's not that surprising to find out some advertisers are quite upset with the deal, and are now suing to block the settlement, claiming that the money going to advertisers is not nearly enough. In some ways, it seems like the advertisers may be getting a bit greedy. While it's true that they're not getting very much from Google, it's quite possible they'd get nothing at all in a full trial where Google could lay out all the steps they take to prevent clickfraud, while also noting that the real liability should be on those doing the actual clickfraud. On top of that, if these advertisers believe so much of their paid search traffic is fraudulent, they could move to Yahoo and Microsoft -- as both are building up their own paid search offerings, and would love to have them (though, chances are the clickfraud is just as bad at either one -- mainly because it's a problem created by third parties, not the search engines themselves).
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they have found your long lost half, Wanamaker!
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greed
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I guess I'm guilty of click fraud
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Re: greed
The world is full of stupid people and I am just along for the ride.
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This is absolutely retarded... there's nothing fra
They start with the false premise, and then when we don't act in accordance with their false premise, they get bent out of shape and want to sue or otherwise attack someone.
In the case of ad-skipping the false premise is that we've implicitly agreed with them to watch the ads if we watch the show the ads are interrupting. In the case of 'clickfraud' the false premise is that we are only allowed to click on ads that we really are interested in and might respond to by spending money. This is completely bogus. If I want to click a million times on their ads, I'm not violating any law or any agreement I've made. I don't happen to want to do that, but there's no legitimate reason I can be compelled not to.
Fraud involves making false statements. There's no fraud here, just raining on someone's parade of stupidity.
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send your money to google
They are motivated to make it look like an unsolvable problem that advertisers will just have to live with and pay for. Why should advertisers pay for this when it is clearly a google expense?
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Re: send your money to google
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again... the lawyers make the money
If we could get rid of those pesky lawyers, the world would be a better place... as usual... ;o)
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Pocket Change Not Enough In Click Fraud
Advertisers should love it. They won't pay for clicks that don't result in sales - they only pay when they actually sell something and have the money. The search engines should buy in because they will be able to show actual results. They won't like it though - it reveals the baloney of their sales pitch.
John Wanamaker would like it because he'd know which half of his advertising budget was wasted. Pay per click is a bad deal - for advertisers, IMHO.
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Re: Re: send your money to google
Click fraud makes a very big lot of money for google. They will never stop it and they dont need to. They just need to convince people they are trying.
Likewise, all those empty google ad sites could be taken off line instantly if google cared (they know there is no content other than ads), but they make money off those spammy sites too (the lions share). So they just have to wring their hands and say they are trying so the money keeps flowing.
Who says that allowing click fraud to continue will jeopardize their perception as being less evil? They can do whatever they want and no one's perception will change.
If you are in the google camp, google can do no wrong and will always be viewed as the most magnificent company ever to shine this earth, regardless of how much data they collect on your private life or who they share it with or whether they patent obvious alogrithms or not, or whether they try to steal a trademark from an existing legitimate holder or not.
And if you are not in that camp, their being a bit more sneaky wont put you in their camp. So who's perception are you worried about being changed?
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Re: Re: send your money to google
I did say that the search engines woudn't like it.
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