Report: Click fraud up to nearly 16%

Don Day September 16th, 2007

I literally gasped when I read this figure: Click Forensics says 15.8% of all clicks on ad networks was fraudulent in Q2 2007. The study used data from more than 4,000 advertisers - and showed the click fraud rate rose 1% from the previous quarter. Google’s”click fraud czar” Shuman Ghosemajumder told Forbes that he doesn’t buy those numbers, and brushes off talk that Google benefits from fraud. “Auditors like Click Forensics estimate the amount of click fraud that’s being attempted, not how much is going undetected and is charged to advertisers,” Ghosemajumder said. “We have a very direct financial incentive to detect bad publishers–the ones engaged in click fraud–and remove them from the system.”