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How Fixing Broken Windows Can Decrease Click Fraud
here is a theory in law to put into practice. If the
enforcement that goes community isn't involved in the
something like this: cleanup effort, the initiative
fails. When the community is
If someone breaks a window in a drawn in to help police the
building, and it isn't fixed problems, to report them and to
quickly, others will soon be 'mind the store', so to speak,
broken. As the evidence of crime rates drop.
neglect builds, vandals will be
more emboldened to break into the This theory can be extended to
building and commit more police nearly any venue where
vandalism and eventually destroy there is unacceptable behavior -
it completely. including the problem of click
fraud in the venue of PPC
If, on the other hand, that advertising. At the moment, the
window is promptly fixed, it PPC industry is like a vacant
discourages further crime because building with nobody watching the
it is clear that someone is store. It's easy to enter
watching the store. fraudulent clicks. It's even
easier to get away with it. At
Further, if instead of just the moment, a large percentage of
fixing the window, you find the advertisers leave the detection
vandal and hold them accountable of fraudulent clicks up to the
for it, a message goes out loud PPC provider - and the policy of
and clear: we're watching and you most PPC providers is that they
will get caught. will provide refunds for proven
click fraud upon request from the
The problem with the broken advertiser.
windows theory is that it
requires more than police action What happens when:
their own campaigns. If you don't
- The PPC provider's software know it's happening, you can't
detection methods don't catch the take steps to stop it.
click fraud?
- The advertiser doesn't use 2. Advertisers need to use the
fraud detection software? information they generate through
- The advertiser can't back up their analytics to demand refunds
the claim of click fraud? from the PPC companies on a
- The major players in the consistent basis. As long as the
industry refer to the problem as losses are minor compared to the
'negligible'? profits for the PPC companies,
their incentive for responding is
Simply put - the click fraudster limited.
gets away with it. The rewards
are enormous - estimates put the 3. Click fraud perpetrators have
amount of money lost to click to be identified, actively
fraud in the range of billions of pursued and penalized. Currently,
dollars annually. But the loss to modern techniques that use
any individual advertiser is proxies and 'zombie networks' can
usually negligible, and even make it almost impossible to
Google sees refunding money to identify and punish offenders.
advertisers as no more than the
cost of doing business. Those are the three elements of
the Broken Window theory that
If we're ever going to put a dent make it work - community action,
in click fraud, three things have official backing and action and
to happen. penalizing perpetrators.
1. Advertisers have to take The first element in combating
responsibility for monitoring click fraud as a community is in
getting click fraud prevention extend the software and make
and tracking software into the those extensions available to the
hands of all advertisers. The community at large.
difficulty of sifting through
hundreds of pages of data to make With those monitors in place, the
comparisons and weed out patterns second part of the equation
that signal click fraud is a becomes more possible. When it's
daunting one for most companies. easy for advertisers to identify
and document fraudulent clicks on
Click fraud detection software their campaigns, it becomes that
makes it almost painless - but much easier for them to demand
can be expensive. Other parts of refunds for those clicks. The
the internet market have third part is an outgrowth of
benefited from open sourcing of creating a community that
software to manage content, actively works to eliminate click
manipulate graphics, and create fraud.
communities and process payments.
An open offering of free click For the time being, click
fraud prevention software will fraudsters are loose in a
encourage advertisers to start neighborhood of broken windows.
monitoring their own logs and With the right tools, we can
records and identify potential begin to repair the windows and
fraudulent clicks. create a community that makes it
nearly impossible to get away
In addition, an open offering with their tactics.
encourages others to modify and
About the Author:
Jay Stockwell has been fighting click fraud since 1999. In 2004 he developed the first version of Click Sentinel which was released 6 months later to critical acclaim. His release of Click Sentinel (Version 2) redefines how click fraud should be addressed.
Read more articles by: Jay Stockwell
Article Source: www.iSnare.com
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