Google (still) pocketing dollars for free clicks
Ten months after the behavior was first spotlighted, Google continues to charge its advertisers for "free clicks," thanks to a partnership that sees its ads served onto a well-known example of online pop-up-ware. According to new research from Harvard professor and noted Google critic Ben Edelman, the web giant is still sending …
but google really do need to be taken down a peg or two...
get em in court for fraud or somthing.... there is no way anyone should pay for a advert for a site they are already on.
hiit them where it hurts,... make them reveal the whole way google ads work.....
But if someone else does evil and you benefit financially - do nothing about it.
Google exec #1: We have a problem, we are over charging people.
Google exec #2: I don't want to turn off any money making machine until the last second until someone legally forces me to.
Google exec #1: Well I'm not going to turn it off either.
Google exec #2: Ok problem solved, let someone else deal with it.
... and so it rolls on.
So much for the much chanted company motto, "do no harm".
Coat, because, like so many exec's they are to busy stuffing money into their pockets to care about such concepts as empathy towards others.
... Don't be evil? (instead of do no harm)
Absolutely.
Unfortunately blocking google api's and google maps breaks some sites. However blocking everything else google such as googleadservices, googlesyndication and doubleclick to name but three is something every Internet user should do.
The Mozilla Firefox AdBlock plugin blocks ads from ad servers. As such, it does not effect Google's APIs or Google Maps to my knowledge. I have been using it for years with no problems.
Why is no-one bitching about WhenU?
Why are these leeches on the internet society (dodgy search bar and search hijackers) going to be taken down a peg. As far a Google is concerned, there's two page views, one on the original site, and one through WhenU... Guaranteed WhenU is maknig more money out of this scenario than Google.
(If you can't guess I hate these search bar, etc, as they slow down web browsing and *may* interfere with things like webmail or Outlook's RPC over HTTP)
Hear, Hear..
The worst one ever? Google toolbar about 2 years ago. Every machine I dealt with that had browsing issues was caused by this PoS.
If Google is selling these ads through its adsense/adwords programme, then they only get paid when someone clicks on an ad. And why would you click on an ad for a site when you are already there? Maybe Google is not worried because this is a non-issue.
WhenU are scummy though.
No money changes hands till someone actually clicks an ad. Why would someone who's already at the CA website, who then saw a pop-up ad for CA, go on to click through from the pop-up???
I'm just starting on adwords. My problem is that I'm paying for clicks which are obviously auto-generated, which is a much worse problem. The URL points back to an ad-aggregator website; on one site I got 2 clicks from a single impression. In other words, the ad was shown once on an obviously fraudulent website, someone/something clicked twice on it, and I paid twice. I have to manually exclude these sites every day.
1) Dumb luser goes to CA site directly.
2) Browser window is immediately obscured by huge popup from malware^H^H^H^H^H^H^HWhenU.
3) Luser spots CA ad at top and goes: "Ah yes, that's what I wanted".
4) Luser clicks on ad.
5) Malware peddlar's associates (aka Google) charge CA for click.
6) Repeat until luser gets the message, curses, closes all those open browser/popup windows and sods off to rant on some seedy tech site about how crap Microsoft are, as it's all obviously their fault.
Well it is Microsoft's browser with the scummy malware installed. They are easily as much at fault as Google here. Probably more, have MS ever handed out compensation to anyone for the problems their shitty software causes?
