Ben Edelman, a PhD candidate at Harvard and a spyware researcher, has recently come out with some new follow-up information about his research in August of 2005 concerning spyware vendors receiving payments from Yahoo!’s Overture by way of click fraud.
Basically, Edelman claims that advertisers’ ads are running in syndicated spyware applications, which convert each impression as an ad click, essentially creating fake clicks without the user even being involved. The money from these phony transactions is split between the spyware vendor and Yahoo!, according to Edelman.
"Spyware syndication falls within the general problem of syndication-based click fraud. Suppose X, the Yahoo partner site, hires a spyware vendor to send users to its site and to make it appear as if those users clicked X’s Yahoo ads. Then advertisers will pay Yahoo, and Yahoo will pay X, even though users never actually clicked the ads," Edelman said.
Edelman’s site (shown below) includes an in-depth analysis of the issue, which uses video clips, screenshots, and full packet logs of the spyware click fraud happening.
Sources:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/
wpn-60-20060404YahooImplicatedInSpyware
ClickFraud.html
http://www.benedelman.org/news/040406-1.html
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