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Meandering the Margins of Goog and Evil
By Jim Hedger (c) 2006

Don't be evil. That is the kernel of Google's public corporate
ethics statement from front to finish. While it is a three word
chant of a corporate policy, it is, nevertheless the three words
Google uses to differentiate itself and its decisions. Those
three words set Google apart from its ethically wordier
competition, holding itself up to scrutiny under a higher
standard. When the majority of Internet users think search, they
immediately think about Google.

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?

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 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.
(http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2006/dec/6.html)  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.
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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 (http://www.marklandmedia.com/),
an independent search marketing journalist for Webmaster Radio
(http://www.webmasterradio.fm/) and the Executive Editor for the
Jayde Online news sources SEO-News (http://www.seo-news.com) and
SiteProNews (http://www.sitepronews.com).
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