I’m a Yahoo Search Advertiser and also EXTREMELY anti-parasite and anti-adware. So it really upsets me that 180 solutions and other slimeballs are possibly serving my Yahoo ads and generating bogus clicks that cost me money! I am tempted to yank all my PPC ads just based on principle! WARNING – Watch your PPC accounts. Ben Edelman reports: The Spyware – Click-Fraud Connection — and Yahoo’s Role Revisited. Story just in from WebProNews:

Yahoo Implicated In Spyware Click Fraud :: WebProWorld
“When that click is paid, according to spyware researcher Ben Edelman, Yahoo and the spyware vendor split the revenue. Edelman has followed up his August 2005 research into spyware receiving payments from Yahoo’s Overture by noting an increase in this possible syndication fraud.

“In my August syndication fraud examples, an advertiser only pays Yahoo if a user clicks the advertiser’s ad. Not so for three of today’s examples. Here, spyware completely fakes a click — causing Yahoo to charge an advertiser a “pay-per-click” fee, even though no user actually clicked on any pay-per-click link. This is “click fraud,” Edelman wrote.

Edelman documented three examples where actual click fraud took place. He named 180solutions, Nbcsearch, and Look2me/Ad-w-a-r-e as culprits in presenting popup ads that defrauded advertisers with Yahoo. “

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