Click fraud akin to inflated magazine circulation
Well, I've written about click fraud several times before in this blog, but it seems every week I have more material to write about. (I'll have to devote an entire chapter to it in the next edition of Make Easy Money with Google!) This time it's the venerable Time magazine that provides the fodder.
Apparently, Time is under investigation for circulation fraud. Circulation fraud is what occurs when a periodical inflates its circulation figures. Higher circulation numbers mean they can charge advertisers more money for the advertisements placed in the periodical. Like I mentioned before, this is why the Audit Bureau of Circulations was established, as an independent way for advertisers to measure circulation numbers in order to determine the true worth of a publication as an advertising vehicle. Interestingly enough, the ABC has recently disqualified “sponsored” sales of publications from being included in circulation figures, but it's unclear whether or not Time's troubles involve sponsored sales.
How does this relate to AdSense and other advertising programs? Not directly, obviously, but it goes to show you that click fraud isn't really new, it's just another way to defraud advertisers. It will be interesting to follow what happens here.
Be sure to download the free sample chapter from my AdSense book if you haven't already done so.
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