Botnet-Based Click Frauds Remain A Major Concern in Advertising Business

Botnet-Based Click Frauds Remain A Major Concern in Advertising Business

According to Click Forensics, though the number of click-fraud attacks fell marginally in the third quarter, it remains a grave problem among businesses in the advertising market. The rate of click fraud surprisingly dropped at 16 percent of all clicks this quarter, a rather trivial regression from that of the second quarter.


Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics, said, "The overall rate continues to dip, as advertisers continue to take more initiative [in monitoring click fraud] and as search engines are starting to take things a bit more seriously.



Cuthbert added,  "That's favourable, but 16 percent is still a very high number, still something to be concerned about."



Click fraud occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad's link. It also includes non-malicious activity which nevertheless generate a click of little or no value to the advertiser.



Botnet-based click frauds continued to rise in the third quarter, hitting around 28 percent of all simulated clicks, as reported by Click Forensics. Cuthbert noted this figure is quite alarming given the nature of this type of attack.



"Click fraud traffic from botnets is very difficult to catch and identify because it's coming from individual machines. It's becoming a very big part of the problem," he said.