Online advertising is one of the hardest things in the world to profit from. A site needs to get tons of hits per month to make a good amount of money for clickthroughs. As many sites don’t get this kind of traffic, they instead choose to cheat. In response to three Canadian men who did take advantage of the their advertisements, Microsoft is choosing to sue for damages. Microsoft claims that the fraud has cost them “at least $750,000.”
Microsoft is right to sue, not only for the $750,000, but as a deterrent for all the other people out there who take defraud advertisers through false clicks. Hell, there are even companies that pay people to do this (a quick Google search returns a lot on the topic). Google probably loses more money this way than Microsoft does; it’s just that it happens to Google in lower concentrations.
The reason this story is so problematic is because it illustrates one of the biggest double-edged swords of the internet age: that is the ability to measure data versus peoples’ ability to compromise the metric. Print advertisers had no idea how effective their methods were next to the work of others, whereas clickthroughs gives those who buy ad space some sense of what draws in customers. Audience feedback is crucial for advertisers, which is why Microsoft and others are smart to go after those who try to rip them off.
