Rates for click fraud spike in Q4 of 2008, the highest in two years
Christine Pepin
Media Coordinator
A new report released by Click Forensics showed click fraud rates of 17.1% in Q4 compared to 16.6% last year during that time. The source of 31.4% of all click fraud comes from botnets which are collections of worm and virus ridden computers. In the month of December, 7.4% of click fraud originated in Canda, 4% in Germany and 2.3% in China.
The rise in botnet activity and increased competition within the click industry has resulted due to the poor economy. With these factors occurring more often, cybercrime has also increased. In addition, the CEO of Click Forensics has identified another contributor: more dollars filtering into pay-per-click advertising. Google, Yahoo and other search engines have measures in place to protect their advertisers from these fraudulent behaviors, however they are not full-proof. With an ailing economy, we as online marketers must be vigilant that click fraud may get worse. As CEO Tom Cuthbert identifies, with ‘industry cooperation’ we can help to lower these click fraud rates.
Tags: botnets, click fraud, Online Marketing, pay-per-click advertising, search engines
