I’m an advertisers worst nightmare because I can’t be bothered paying attention to ads. It’s deliberate rebellion on my part. Online (like elsewhere) I may have to see them but I won’t click on them. At least I thought I was an advertisers problem. I won’t click even if they beg. I don’t like overt advertising, and try to watch for the covert. But people like me aren’t a problem or probably even on a marketers radar screen.
Online search engines are having to confront a far more serious problem in their advertising called ‘click fraud.’

It sort of a search engine equivalent of a blog platform’s comment or trackback spam, or a game site bot problem. (where a bot plays the game all day for you)
I always figured comment and trackback spam were about google juice - getting quickly to the top of search engines, making a few bucks and moving on. But I suppose if comment spam lies around, someone is bound to click.

The main perpetrators appear to be competitors of advertisers and also scam sites set up for the sole purpose of hosting ad links provided by Google, through its AdSense unit, or Yahoo!, through its Overture service. Humans or specially designed software then click on those ad links in order to “steal” revenue from advertisers.

Estimates of how prevalent click fraud has become since it appeared four years ago are all over the map. Jessie Stricchiola, the president of Alchemist Media, estimated that as much as 20 percent of all clicks on paid search ads are shams.

People come up with the most ingenious ways to make money and con others, don’t they?