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'Click Fraud' Threatens Foundation of Web Ads
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Kumar would not say which Web sites employees visit. "That's a professional secret."
In the United States, the SEC filed fraud charges this year against operators of 12dailypro.com, a site that allegedly operated a pay-to-read advertising network that the SEC called a Ponzi scheme. It raised more than $50 million from 300,000 investors. Last month, a federal grand jury indicted Zhihong Zeng in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania for allegedly operating a pay-to-click network that allegedly used click fraud.
In Rockville, Doug Stevens runs a Web site called Mutualhits.com, which encourages Web site owners to form a network to click on each other's ads. The group has more than 2,000 members, many of whom live outside the United States, he said. When asked whether the traffic network was illegal or violated Google's rules, Stevens said it wasn't.
"It's an opportunity for people to market their Web site to other community members," said Stevens, who bought Mutualhits.com on eBay this year for $2,000. "We can't guarantee results."
Big advertisers are pushing search engines behind the scenes to fight click fraud more aggressively, but many are afraid to criticize them publicly because they wield such clout. "Sixty percent of new customers come through Google. [Advertisers] can't afford to upset that channel, regardless of whether there's fraud," said Jason Clement, an associate director at Carat Fusion, a New York ad agency.
This summer, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Corp. and Ask.com executives agreed to form a click fraud working group to develop industry standards. Their first task is to define and agree on the definition of an authentic click.
Special correspondent Muneeza Naqvi in New Delhi and news researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.
