As the world's most popular search engine, Google is, for the most part, thought of most kindly by most of the people, virtually all of the time. People trust it. Businesses are built around it and in business, trust is everything. So what would a reasonable person think when the largest entity in search advertising is said to betray the trust of its advertisers from time to time?

Editorial Note: This article provides some background to the controversial story breaking on Webmaster Radio regarding click fraud, criminal bot networks and Google. The story has been mentioned on numerous sites, including ClickZ, the SearchEnginewatch Blog, Information Week and the Search Engine Journal.

If history is to be a guide, the answer is a rhetorical nothing. Though countless articles have appeared in the mainstream media and tech-press, most reasonable people have absolutely no idea that click fraud is an issue.

Click fraud is a difficult issue to outline in print. Writers risk losing readers as their eyes glaze over a veneer of techno-babble when addressing the issue. Let's face it there is nothing interesting to say about a company that allows click through fees to be levied against advertisers knowing full well the click that led to the charge has no chance of converting to a sale. You just can't make that sentence sound appealing and believe me, many have tried. Click fraud simply isn't sexy so it becomes part of the cost of doing business for the advertisers instead.

Click fraud charges can be considered mistakes, accidents or even human nature, but are somehow not considered a clear and present evil by most reasonable people. If it was, there would be outrage. In the absence of outrage, there is a weary acceptance of Google's claim that it can filter most of the bad-clicks out because that's exactly what Google says it can do, a claim it has never had to actually prove in public.

But what happens to the level of trust if Google knowingly facilitates a program that, though amazingly profitable for shareholders, marketers and even most advertisers, is open to exploitation by organized crime and by terrorist organizations? What if a connection can be established between those organizations and the AdWords/AdSense program? What if the open ended question, "How can Google not know?" is left hanging in the air?

Even the most reasonable people might be moved to suggest Google has meandered over the margins between Goog and Evil.

On behalf of WebmasterRadio.FM, I have been investigating a click fraud story brought to us by Clarence Briggs, CEO of hosting firm, AIT Corp. AIT became the lead proponent in what was collectively known as the Lane's Gifts vs. Google class action law suit after the originator of the suit, Lane's Gifts was financially forced out of the class action.

The class action suit was settled out of court in the spring of 2006 for $90 million with one third of the settlement going to a number of law firms in cash and two thirds divided amongst members of the class action in the form of free clicks.

With the case settled out of court, Google was never forced to describe its billing practices or outline how it determines what is and what is not a valid click. It was never forced to lift the hood and show the world its engine. Google is naturally secretive about the workings of its algorithms, going to great lengths to avoid revealing them in any venue, especially open court. Nobody but Google knows if business and billing practices have changed since the class action was initiated or settled.

Clarence Briggs believes that Google continues doing business as usual. Briggs, along with the majority of AIT's senior staff is a former military psy-ops officer who has an axe to grind against Google. Having set his multiple PPC campaigns to resolve only in Canada or the United States, Briggs was disturbed to find clicks he says he was billed for coming from overseas locations. Clicks from China, clicks from Korea, clicks from India and clicks from Russia are present in AIT's log files. After spending over $40k per month advertising, Mr. Briggs assumed Google would be eager to find an amicable solution. $420,000 to $480,000 per year advertising with Google AdWords and Mr. Briggs figured he would at least be given a fair hearing from his Google AdReps. After weeks of disappointing experiences and evasion of issues raised in his complaints, Mr. Briggs went to court.

AIT has supplied WebmasterRadio.FM with several documents supporting their allegations of fraud and evasion. These documents are available to registered journalists and tech-bloggers on the WebmasterRadio.FM website or by written request to jim – at – webmasterradio.fm/.

Before joining the class-action, AIT attempted to work with Google AdReps to seek explanation and remedy. In a letter to Google Reps Bret H, and Melissa L, (last names not included, as per Google policy), dated Thursday September 6, 2005, AIT's Vice President of Marketing, John Horton outlined AIT's concerns. "After analyzing our log files with respect to our Google PPC traffic, we have concluded that an alarming percentage of the clicks AIT has recorded is [sic] fraudulent."

Mr. Horton's letter continues to outline the steps AIT techs took and the evidence gained that informed their conclusions.

"Our methodology began with the raw log files and eliminating any BOT traffic. Then we eliminated anything that was not a paid click from Google. Next we looked at IP addresses and class C blocks for suspicious activity – multiple clicks from Google on the same day at nearly the same time repeatedly with no time spent on our site from the same class C blocks of IP addresses or exact IP. We then looked at session and cookie activity – multiple clicks from Google on the same day from the same user with no time spent on our site. Other disturbing findings include an inordinate amount of clicks from Asian networks and odd local times for anyone to be clicking. This click thru fraud represents a substantial amount of our total Google traffic."

Before informing Bret and Melissa that AIT's legal department and CFO were getting involved, Mr. Horton requests advice on how to best proceed. (BofA Ltr.PDF – page8)

On behalf of Google, Bret responded to Mr. Horton's request telling him that the matter had been passed to Google's "... invalid click specialists," who would review the account and contact him in the coming days. In a bid to reassure AIT that, "... the security of Google AdWords advertisers is a top priority for Google," Bret cites what appear to be boilerplate paragraphs explaining how Google detects invalid clicks. (BofA Ltr. PDF – page10)

A few days later, AIT began the process of documenting their reasons for demanding a refund on their corporate credit card. That document is the 83 page Bank of America PDF (BofA Ltr.pdf) found in the WebmasterRadio media center.

Feeling he was failing to get remedy from his Google reps, Mr. Briggs began looking at the two class actions forming, one in Arkansas, and the other in California. His story is documented in a WebmasterRadio interview conducted in New York on November 7, 2006.

The initial interview with Mr. Briggs was conducted in a busy hall way at the ad:Tech conference. In it, Mr. Briggs outlines his case. As he does, he makes some very controversial claims, including one linking Google AdWords to organizations involved in the funding of terrorist groups. After an investigation by WebmasterRadio.fm found examples of Google advertising in highly questionable places, we began working our contact lists to find sources to go on the record.

A little digging goes a long way when you want to get to the bottom of a problem. Unfortunately, after a little digging, we discovered we were only scratching the surface. We were looking for direct linkage in a world where the shadows provide safety for scoundrels.

Though we found enough in the open to know we were on a hot trail, (such as the Orkut material presented in the WebmasterRadio.FM media center), none of it could be used to nail a direct connection between criminal or terrorist related activity.

I was able to obtain an interview with a young Iraqi man named Waleed who claims to have been behind the lines in Falujah during one of the assaults on the city. Waleed outlines how monies raised through several popular blogs, including SalamPax, and Where's Rahid, were funneled towards smuggling goods into Falujah.

Waleed worked as a translator, fixer and photo-journalist for the BBC, Al Jazeera, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications while in Iraq. While he has a political message behind his words, his description of how the money is transformed into supplies and moved into the warzone makes sense. The interview was conducted in a noisy cybercafé and the sound quality is not as high as radio quality would normally demand. In the coming days, a transcript will be posted to the media center at WebmasterRadio.FM.

Also, in our investigation of Mr. Briggs' claims, we became interested in bot-nets and their effect on click fraud. I was able to interview Ryan Sherstobitoff, a security evangelist from Panda Software. That interview became an article, "The Silent Epidemic of BotNets", which ran in SiteProNews.com last week. In the article, Mr. Sherstobitoff outlines what Panda Software found during the investigation that led to the dismantling of a 50,000 PC botnet earlier this year.

While WebmasterRadio's investigation continues, we feel we have opened and attempted to answer enough questions to bring the issue public. This is going to be an ongoing series on click fraud in our efforts to initiate an industry wide effort to discuss, examine and eradicate click fraud. Stay tuned for a lot more information.

About The Author
Search marketing expert Jim Hedger is one of the most prolific writers in the search sector with articles appearing in numerous search related websites and newsletters, including SiteProNews, Search Engine Journal, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.

He is the co-founder of Markland Media, an independent search marketing journalist for Webmaster Radio and the Executive Editor for the Jayde Online news sources SEO-News and SiteProNews.

Printer Friendly Version of this Article