Just How Bad Is Click Fraud?

A $500 million to $1 billion problem, depending on whom you ask.

In a front page article in The Washington Post, 'Click Fraud' Threatens Foundation of Web Ad, staff writer Sara Kehaulani Goo discusses the mechanics of click fraud, the new forms of click fraud — the fast growing "pay to read"...

Wal-Mart Funded Blog Exposed

So it looks like there is yet another Wal-Mart/Edelman blog controversy.  The gist of the story is that a blog  launched in late September that was supposedly written by a couple traveling across America in an RV and spending nights parked in Wal-Mart lots.  It turned out the blog was paid for by a Wal-Mart funded group and one of the blog's authors is a Washington Post photographer. ...

Bloggers On The Take

With the rise of blogging has come blogger relations: the efforts of PR and marketing types to get bloggers, some influential with large audiences, some obscure with niche ones, and everyone else in between, to write about their companies and clients' products.

In many ways there's nothing new to this development. ...

Two Major Stories on Click Fraud

Anyone conducting keyword ad campaigns on sites like Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Engine Marketing should check out these two recent articles on click fraud:

• Click Fraud is Growing on the Web – New York Times
• Click Fraud: The Dark Side of Online Advertising –
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DoubleClick Integrates Ad Serving Into Flash Sites

According to a recent article in Online Media Daily, DoubleClick has introduced a new ad serving platform that integrates ads directly into Flash-based websites.  The new system enables the ad to interact directly with the content, coordinating the rich media elements of the ads with the rest of the content so that they are not competing with one another for attention....