And this weeks 'Armageddon For Paid Search' subject is... Click Fraud (according to the Washington Post).
OK, maybe not put that strongly, although the mainstream newspaper does go to quite some length to unravel the underground world of paid to click.
From her home surrounded by cornfields in Dow City, Iowa, Jackie Park spends hours each day on her computer, earning half a penny every time she clicks on an Internet advertisement. By the end of the day, she usually tallies a few hundred clicks, yielding about $300 a year. It's not much, but it adds up for the 35-year-old mother of five who became disabled three years ago.And what's an undercover exposé without a trip to a far-away country, let’s say - India?
In New Delhi, small companies place ads in the top English-language newspapers every week looking to hire people who will use their home computers to click on text ads on certain Web sites. One ad offers the equivalent of several hundred dollars a day for spending two hours on the Internet. A visit to the company that placed the ad, Shipranet, leads to a small windowless apartment converted to an office...As commented on at ThreadWatch, Click Fraud scammers are quite old news and bringing this information into the mainstream will probably only serve to increase the number of people looking to recruit such companies in order to make a quick buck off AdSense. At half a penny a click going to the people performing the mouse-action, it does go to show however where the real money in click fraud is pocketed - your friendly poverty-line recruiting middleman.
Further Discussion At WebmasterWorld.
