Adwords Bankruptcy Attack ?
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Suppose a deep-pocketed company detects a startup trying to use adwords to attract customers. Via laundered money they hire an army of third-world folks to click on those ads. "There ought to be a law", but IS there even a law against this ? If third-world folks might work for say a penny-per-click and the startup paid say a nickel-per-click, sounds pretty sure-fire. I am not familiar with anonymity-techniques, how difficult might it be to back-track such an attack ? Has anyone heard of speculation along these lines, seems obvious really ?
pg--az
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Suppose a deep-pocketed company detects a startup trying to use adwords to attract customers. Via laundered money they hire an army of third-world folks to click on those ads. "There ought to be a law", but IS there even a law against this ? If third-world folks might work for say a penny-per-click and the startup paid say a nickel-per-click, sounds pretty sure-fire. I am not familiar with anonymity-techniques, how difficult might it be to back-track such an attack ? Has anyone heard of speculation along these lines, seems obvious really ?
pg--az
Paid people clicking links? Surely this is one of the many things a botnet is useful for ....
'--8<------------------------ Ex Datis: Duncan Jones Merrion Computing Ltd
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Suppose a deep-pocketed company detects a startup trying to use adwords to attract customers. Via laundered money they hire an army of third-world folks to click on those ads. "There ought to be a law", but IS there even a law against this ? If third-world folks might work for say a penny-per-click and the startup paid say a nickel-per-click, sounds pretty sure-fire. I am not familiar with anonymity-techniques, how difficult might it be to back-track such an attack ? Has anyone heard of speculation along these lines, seems obvious really ?
pg--az
It happens. My adwords get occasional attacks from India and Asia, and also from the U.S. Google is pretty good at catching this kind of attack, so I'm not sure how much actually gets through.
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Paid people clicking links? Surely this is one of the many things a botnet is useful for ....
'--8<------------------------ Ex Datis: Duncan Jones Merrion Computing Ltd
>> Paid people clicking links? Surely this is one of the many things a botnet is useful for .... << Indeed ! We hear all the time about "Denial of Service", "Exhaustion of Adword-Account-Balance" seems even more severe, so you know the light-bulb lit up and I wondered that I had never-ever heard of such a thing, have you ?
pg--az
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It happens. My adwords get occasional attacks from India and Asia, and also from the U.S. Google is pretty good at catching this kind of attack, so I'm not sure how much actually gets through.
>> It happens..from India and Asia.. I'm not sure how much actually gets through << And indeed, you cannot possibly be sure. That was why I was envisioning the paid-minions, there might imaginably be some way of detecting botnets, but on the one hand you have the scenario where someone writes an article about your product, it gets Slashdotted, whatever. To discriminate a legitimate flurry of interest from an attack - well, if the clicks did NOT come from India or Asia, how do you read the mind of the clicker, sigh ! Thanks for confirming my armchair-wannabe-musings, it's a cruel world out there.
pg--az
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Suppose a deep-pocketed company detects a startup trying to use adwords to attract customers. Via laundered money they hire an army of third-world folks to click on those ads. "There ought to be a law", but IS there even a law against this ? If third-world folks might work for say a penny-per-click and the startup paid say a nickel-per-click, sounds pretty sure-fire. I am not familiar with anonymity-techniques, how difficult might it be to back-track such an attack ? Has anyone heard of speculation along these lines, seems obvious really ?
pg--az
Supposedly google has "statistical methods" to detect such a click-fraud... 3 years ago I begun advertising at adwords; it was fairly unknown in my Country in my business line. I paid 5 cents per click and closedly monitored it to ensure not to overspend. It worked charmes for about three months; paying a few hundred dollars I attracted many new customers. After that, I was billed two thousand dollars within just one week or so -before I noticed. I was sure someone kept clicking on my ad. Back than I used statcounter and their log files also supported my concerns. I complained Google. They asked my server lof files and stuff; and replied a week after telling me that all clicks were from unique users. Case was closed, but I was sure there was something wrong. I couldn't prove it off course. Anyway, about 6 months after I received a mail informing that there has been filed a class action lawsuit against Google with regards to click-frauds during the time I advertised and I was automatically included in class unles I explicitly waiver. According to that email Google spared a million USD to compensate the losses of advertisers who had been target to such fraud attacks Surely money had to be paid in advertising credits. I've been busy never had the time to check back. :D So yes, it was doable and yes, it must be still doable Haluk, www.ortaparmak.com
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Supposedly google has "statistical methods" to detect such a click-fraud... 3 years ago I begun advertising at adwords; it was fairly unknown in my Country in my business line. I paid 5 cents per click and closedly monitored it to ensure not to overspend. It worked charmes for about three months; paying a few hundred dollars I attracted many new customers. After that, I was billed two thousand dollars within just one week or so -before I noticed. I was sure someone kept clicking on my ad. Back than I used statcounter and their log files also supported my concerns. I complained Google. They asked my server lof files and stuff; and replied a week after telling me that all clicks were from unique users. Case was closed, but I was sure there was something wrong. I couldn't prove it off course. Anyway, about 6 months after I received a mail informing that there has been filed a class action lawsuit against Google with regards to click-frauds during the time I advertised and I was automatically included in class unles I explicitly waiver. According to that email Google spared a million USD to compensate the losses of advertisers who had been target to such fraud attacks Surely money had to be paid in advertising credits. I've been busy never had the time to check back. :D So yes, it was doable and yes, it must be still doable Haluk, www.ortaparmak.com
>> It worked charmes for about three months; paying a few hundred dollars I attracted many new customers. After that, I was billed two thousand dollars within just one week or so ... Google... telling me that all clicks were from unique users ...<< Aaaaaa - it *IS* a cruel world out there. Thanks for confirming my theory !
pg--az
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Supposedly google has "statistical methods" to detect such a click-fraud... 3 years ago I begun advertising at adwords; it was fairly unknown in my Country in my business line. I paid 5 cents per click and closedly monitored it to ensure not to overspend. It worked charmes for about three months; paying a few hundred dollars I attracted many new customers. After that, I was billed two thousand dollars within just one week or so -before I noticed. I was sure someone kept clicking on my ad. Back than I used statcounter and their log files also supported my concerns. I complained Google. They asked my server lof files and stuff; and replied a week after telling me that all clicks were from unique users. Case was closed, but I was sure there was something wrong. I couldn't prove it off course. Anyway, about 6 months after I received a mail informing that there has been filed a class action lawsuit against Google with regards to click-frauds during the time I advertised and I was automatically included in class unles I explicitly waiver. According to that email Google spared a million USD to compensate the losses of advertisers who had been target to such fraud attacks Surely money had to be paid in advertising credits. I've been busy never had the time to check back. :D So yes, it was doable and yes, it must be still doable Haluk, www.ortaparmak.com