Spyware, click fraud and the ppc engines

[arpan911]

Back in April New York Attorney-General Elliot Spitzer sued Intermix Media for installing unsolicited toolbars on users PCs. This prompted speculation that other companies connected with adware/spyware software would be sued, including Ask Jeeves following their acquisition of Interactive Search Holdings. ISH’s websites include MyWay, and MyWay’s toolbar has a nasty habit of appearing on user’s computer uninvited. Ask Jeeves isn’t the only search company that has been accused of acquiring traffic from spyware; Mamma.com, FindWhat (who bought toolbar company Comet Systems), Google and most recently Yahoo! have all been accused.
Spyware and Adware Explained

Adware is software that once installed displays adverts on your computer. These adverts might be banner adverts shown in one piece of software or random, annoying pop ups. Taken further, adware might super-impose PPC links over search results or reset your homepage to a “search engine” you’ve never heard of that is full of low-quality PPC adverts.

Some adware also records what sites you visit. This type of software is known as spyware. The more malicious forms of spyware record what you type including your passwords. These can then be transmitted back to a central server for use in identity fraud.

Not all adware is malicious, however. It can be perfectly legitimate – having banner adverts shown at the top of free software is the price you pay for it being free; in fact the Opera browser used to do this, and it was an acceptable trade-off for a free quality browser.

Another type of adware and spyware exists – software that exploits security flaws in operating systems and browsers to install itself without your permission or warning. This called a “drive-by” installation. This includes some toolbars and add-ons for email software. These programs may then start spying on you and pestering you with PPC adverts you don’t want via pop ups and their PPC links imposed over search results.
Adware and PPC Advertisers

PPC advertising is built upon a simple principal: give the public what they want, when they ask for it – because that’s when they are likely to get their wallet out. Adware that uses PPC adverts defies this principle, making PPC adverts intrusive and often irrelevant (e.g. superimposing adverts over links in web pages or showing US-targeted PPC adverts to people outside the US).

This generates poor quality clicks from duped Internet users that aren’t looking to buy from the advertisers paying for those clicks. The sort of people who distribute unwanted adware and spyware are also the sort of people who are likely to carry out click fraud to earn money as an affiliate of the search engines. Make no mistake about it – your PPC campaigns will have received clicks generated by toolbars, pop ups and other pieces of software the user didn’t want installed on their computer. In some cases, advertisers who are new to PPC seem to be specifically targeted, probably because the fraudsters believe they won’t be savvy enough to spot what’s gong on. I recently encountered with a case like this in the UK.
Adware and the PPC Engines

So are the search engines handing out PPC result feeds to these companies? Certainly some of the smallest PPC engines have not vetted who uses their PPC results. But their bid prices are low and coverage of searches poor. So the adware companies look to use the feeds of the bigger PPC engines – by legitimately partnering with them by getting a PPC results feed for a legitimate website and then using it in their adware products as well. Some adware now deletes the adware installed by other , companies too.
Protect Your Own Computer

First of all, make sure your computer and those of your family and colleagues are secure. The less people who have unsecured PCs, the less people there are to be tricked into clicking on PPC adverts – according to one survey, two thirds of PCs are infected. Find out more on how to protect your computer here.

Check Your Traffic and Complain - Calmly

You should be checking the quality of your PPC traffic for poor quality clicks. Look for sudden bursts of clicks from individual website(s) – often when you look into the source website you will find they are owned by a company who have a reputation for spyware/adware. Type the company name into Google and you’ll probably see adverts for software to remove their spyware. To learn more about detecting click fraud read these articles: Click Fraud: How to Detect and Stop a Growing Problem, Click Fraud: State of the Industry and Click Fraud: the reality . Record suspicious traffic calmly, with clearly documented evidence.
Other Developments Against Adware and Spyware

Microsoft and Yahoo have joined the Anti-Spyware Collation along with Computer Associates and Hewlett Packard. Hopefully this will prompt Yahoo to look at the activities of some of Overture’s more duibous partners and MSN will have the good sense to ensure it doesn’t allow these companies as partner in it’s PPC program when it launches. CNET has also announced it will stop hosting adware-supported software on Download.com.

The PPC engines are taking some action against these companies; but more is required. Miva (formely FindWhat) announced it was dropping some partners earlier this year because of the poor quality traffic they generate, and this was one factor that led to a fall in the share price of the company.

Ask Jeeves represenative Steve Berkowitz publicly stated at SES San Jose that the company supports consumer privay and that toolbars are not forced on users, but that some of their affiliates have misused the toolbars and forced them on users. It waits to be seen if, over time, complaints about MyWay appearing on user’s computers uninvited will stop. Ask jeeves recently stated that:

“In [Ben Edelman's] video he highlights an advertising affiliate that installed our toolbar through an unacceptable practice known in the industry as drive-by downloads.

“We don’t endorse that activity and explicitly call this out as off-limits in our contracts. We terminated the relationship when it came to our attention.”
Give Advertisers Control

However, as argued by Danny Sullivan, the PPC networks should also be giving advertisers the ability to control which sites show their adverts – so advertisers can opt-out of poor quality sites that spend budgets but do not generate sales. Google already allows this for content advertising (but not search) and Mirago and BlowSearch allow advertisers to do this for all their PPC campaigns. As Sullivan notes, the current situation is like forcing you to buy a TV advert that is shown on every channel during every program, when in fact you only want to advertise on one channel during one show. It’s time the big boys of PPC handed more control to the advertiser – and took a long hard look at their partners. Before more courts and attorney generals do.

By: Duncan Parry

[mini_0]

This is probably first time I am readingthat spyware and click fraud , PPC are arelated .There are concerns about adware because it often takes the form of spyware, in which information about the user's activity is tracked, reported, and often re-sold, often without the knowledge or consent of the user. Of even greater concern is malware, which may interfere with the function of other software applications, in order to force users to visit a particular web site.