Google has launched a lawsuit against Auctions Experts International, an online business which allegedly set up am AdSense-supported Website for the sole purpose of perpetrating fraudulent clicks. This high-profile lawsuit is a warning shot by Google to all fraudulent clickers, large and small, but the real question is how effective Google's anti-fraud technology really is. One lawsuit in what most people regard as a sea of click fraud does not speak well for a system that flawlessly detects artificial clicks. This situation might develop into something similar to the music industry's ongoing lawsuits against individual file-sharers: Lots of publicity, but not much fear among actual users, and certainly not much effectiveness in changing user behavior.
1. I'm glad Google is going after them. For me, Adwords was the last viable PPC - having seen accounts at others drained way too quickly for the traffic I should have received - I can only guess click fraud. Go Google.
Posted at 6:05AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Dan