For today's edition of the NPR program Day to Day, I filed a report on the growing dilemma surrounding click fraud — shorthand for the many forms of invalid traffic that can run up online advertisers' bills. Just how big the problem may be is disputed, but some say click fraud may account for as much as 20 percent of all ad traffic and a billion dollars a year in bogus sales.
Click fraud is currently the subject of some high-profile lawsuits involving search engines. In an Arkansas class action suit involving multiple search biz defendants, Google recently offered to settle to the tune of 90 million dollars. Yahoo and others haven't said whether or how much they'll pay in that case. Another suit filed against Google in a federal court in California is up for class action consideration mid-May.
For today's story, I spoke with Google's Trust and Safety product manager Shuman Ghosemajunder; Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch; Tom McGovern of Snap.com; and Jessie Stricchiola, who's serving as an expert consultant in the Arkansas class action suit.
Link to archived audio for "Web Ad Buyers Fight Back Against Click Fraud." Here are the NPR "Xeni Tech" archives.
Charles Mann did a comprehensive piece on click fraud for a recent issue of Wired Magazine here: How Click Fraud Could Swallow the Internet. And BusinessWeek's Burt Helm did a story last month that's well worth a read, too: Click Fraud Gets Smarter.
