Google loses $1billion to click fraud a year

[Ryan56]

Google Incorporated claims the company loses about $1 billion US a year to "click fraud" and similar scams on its ad service. Special software that can click on an ad repeatedly can be used to inflate a rival company's advertising costs or boost a site operator's own revenue gained from displaying the ads. Advertisers have been asking Google for a clearer picture of the reach and effectiveness of their ads. Google does not charge its advertisers for clicks it determines to be invalid, effectively cutting into the company's revenue.

"Our invalid clicks rate has remained in the range of less than 10 per cent of all clicks every quarter since we launched AdWords in 2002. Click fraud protection is something we take very seriously, and it requires a great deal of research and development to do effectively. [The] figures illustrate the significant level of proactive protection we provide, and how this has resulted in minimizing the actual impact of click fraud on advertisers," wrote Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google's business product manager for trust and safety, on the company's Inside AdWords blog late Thursday.

[rock]

They dont lose that much from click fraud, they steal that much from users saying that they were performing click frad from their users.

One user in the Google Adsense was complaining about a recent denial of service he got because one of his users unknowingly clicked all his ads a bunch of times and then told everyone in the forum that he did. He never got his account back, he had like $76 i think, which isnt fun to lose, and Google cares how much that they did this to an innocent user?

[flickall]

They never loose anything they show they loose but they gain 10 times or more.
Do you know about the number of accounts been banned by click fraud.

do you know what do they do with the money..
this is how they make the money.... show click fraud ... ban accounts & gain money & pay a percentage to the adwords person.

so they gain in all ways.

so what they say is all bogus.... don;'t believe it - that would be better

[Zanadoo]

They may lose a lot of money from "click fraud" but they definitely make a whole lot more. Plus while $1 billion is a whole lot of money to us, to a company the size and strength of Google it is not a big deal at all.

[joseph0829]

there's no reason at all Google looses their profit! For crying out loud everyone is using Google. And i think they're the number one when it comes to search engine operations.

[bizzard]

I too agree with above posters..... They money we get are getting reduced every time.... When they cancels an account, are we sure that they are paying it back to the advertisers?

[naives]

The real problem with the Google Adsense is that it has got no transparency. Google says that you did that and that is against our rules and they didn't give us any evidence.