Click Jacking and Click Fraud Rule the Net

I suppose by now everyone is convinced that the internet isn't really all that safe.

Your browser, ISP, DNS, BGP...everything is unreliable, insecure and most of the software you use is so full of bugs that a schoolgirl could pretty well trick, fool, exploit or engineer any user into doing anything they want without them even realising it.

The latest 'discovery' merely confirms what I've been saying all along. Your browser - perhaps every browser can be hijacked and you could be made to click on any link the attacker chooses, even invisible ones. After that - your browser is pretty well hijacked.

The snake-oil salesman are still peddling snake-oil and the internet is still wide open.

You just don't know what you're clicking on or where you really are.

Is internet commerce a bubble about to burst?

It is yet another reason mobile transactions will rule on the internet. (Sorry NFC guys, it won't work for you will it?)

Click-Fraud

The current attention on search engines and browsers prompts me to remind readers about how enterprising hackers, housewives and retirees have been creaming the search engines (and you) for years and making a fortune through click fraud.

There are website groups with blogs and technical advice all supporting the members' efforts to carry out click fraud. The simplest involve rings of clickers, who receive their URL's by email or log-on to the site to download the latest targets.

The more complex plots involve malware and trojans turning innocent computer users into click fraud accomplices. The difference is that the latter is more profitable.

The search engines claim they have a handle on it.

Perhaps they could explain exactly how they can tell the difference between a legitimate web surfer and a web surfer whose machine was clicking on additional links without their knowledge?

Or how they could tell the difference between a legitimate surfer and one who is being paid to click on links or ads?

I can only see one way that search engines like Google would be able to even have an educated guess about whether a click was legitimate or not.

Tracking.

Here's the rub, you might decide you don't like anyone tracking your browser so you download an obfuscator - a little plug-in to your browser which appears to 'surf' random sites in the background, rendering the behavioural analysis and tracking machinery useless.

It might just be clicking on ads in the background and making a nice little earn on the side for the programmer too. More fake clicks someone is paying for?

If you pay for search advertising you are being defrauded.

It is not in the interests of Google or Yahoo to tell you this.

They are making a lot of money from those fraudulent clicks.

I estimate that between 10% and 25% of clicks could be fraudulent.

It is difficult to tell, but at the moment it is an industry employing thousands of people from Rio to Riga.

If you spend on search advertising, go back and get a 10% discount at least.

They'll give it to you.

They don't want you to carry out a forensic investigation, because you'll be more than likely to find that you've overpaid at least that much.

If they don't then just hire someone to prove it for you. If you're big enough, then sue and maybe invite other advertisers to join a class action. It's pretty much the same as banks and mortgages, you know - those little mistakes made in the calculations which most people don't have the ability  to check? When the customers hire someone to check - invariably the bank has made an error in the bank's favour. In fact I've never heard of a mortgage error in a customer's favour, but I know of millions in the bank's favour. It's just like that. It's fraud.

It is fraud. Treat it like fraud. At least 10% of your internet advertising budget is probably being clicked away without any possibility of a return for your business.

If you believe the snake-oil salesmen and ad sellers, then perhaps you'd like to hear about this great opportunity to get in on this toll-bridge deal?