Step back for a moment and put yourself in Google's shoes. On the one hand, you have a community of advertisers who pay you to place their advertisements on web pages - their own and others. On the other hand, you have a community of 'partners' on whose pages you place these ads and with whom you share the profits from advertisers. You have an interest in maintaining relationships with both of those communities - but the interests of each of those communities are interwoven and complex and very often at odds. What happens when a member of one of those communities comes to you with a complaint from the other? Where does your interest lie?
Therein lies one of the biggest hurdles in the battle to eliminate - or at least effectively deal with - click fraud. The companies that manage PPC advertising - Google, Overture and other search engine companies - have a clear conflict of interest in resolving disputed clicks. This conflict sometimes even extends to the terminology used to refer to fraudulent clicks in either community. Google, for instance, collects from advertisers for 'actual clicks' and pays publishers for 'valid clicks'. That's led to speculation that Google may be collecting from advertisers for some clicks for which they don't pay publishers.
Are you confused yet? Don't feel alone. Most people are on one level or another when it comes to stopping click fraud - and one of the major reasons for that confusion is that the PPC companies refuse to share their methods and criteria for detecting and identifying fraudulent clicks. They reason that by publishing their criteria for determining when a click-through is fraudulent they will be giving the scammers and frauds a blueprint to design more seamless methods of defrauding advertisers. Advertisers point out that without knowing the PPCs definition of 'fraudulent clicks', they're at a major disadvantage when requesting a refund for them. And here's the rub - when an advertiser makes an allegation that they've been defrauded and requests a refund, the one who decides whether or not a refund is due - i.e. whether the clicks were fraudulent or not - is the PPC company, who stands to lose income by refunding the money paid.
It becomes a matter of trust, and the advertisers as a whole do not trust Google, Overture and other PPC companies to make a judgment that will take money out of their pockets. Obviously, a clear conflict of interest exists. There are several ways to deal with a situation where a conflict of interest exists, and most of them could be applied to resolve this conflict of interests that makes click fraud so difficult to deal with.
1. Disclosure - putting all the cards on the table. When one group is claiming up to 30% of the clicks made on their ads are fraudulent and the other is stating that the figure is 10% or less, there is a clear discrepancy in the methods being used to detect and identify fraud. Even limited disclosure on the part of the PPC companies would allow advertisers to compare their own records and analyses with those of the 'officials' - in this case the company that is collecting and paying out the money - and discover where the discrepancy lies.
On the reverse side, the PPC engines would also benefit from disclosing their methods of determining click fraud. It’s far more effective and far less costly to NOT pay or bill for fraudulent clicks than it is to refund money paid and write off the loss as the cost of doing business. Feedback from the advertising and publishing communities serves as a benchmark of the success of their filters, and an extension of their own monitoring efforts. By comparing their statistics with those of the community, they can refine the filters that they use to catch click fraud before it costs anyone money.
2. Recusal is not an option under the current structure of resolving PPC fraud disputes. There is only one arbiter available to decide whether a claim that fraud was committed is legitimate - the company that stands to lose money if it is judged legitimate. While there will always be the question of conflict of interest, the fact is that it is in the best interest of the PPC engine to identify fraud and stop it before it happens. One of the better ways to both increase their capability to deal with click fraud and decrease the appearance of conflict of interest is to participate in community efforts to educate and empower advertisers.
3. Third party evaluations - conflict resolution boards - are another way to minimize conflict of interest in the matter of click fraud. In order for that to work, though, there is a need for the community to come together and demand it.
The key in using any of those methods is in an open community forum where all parties can discuss the problem and work toward an open solution. Click Sentinel is proposing just that type of open community, supported by open source, freely available software that will allow advertisers to identify click patterns that are markers for fraudulent activity, compare their metrics with those of the PPC companies, and generate reports to back up their claims of being defrauded. The community solution is one that has worked in other avenues to reduce and virtually eliminate problems and crime in real life situations, and it can work against click fraud.
By Jay Stockwell
Click Sentinel
Fighting Click Fraud Together
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