Unilever and Click Fraud

In Mediapost: 
" ... It's one thing for researchers and journalists to band around click-fraud statistics, and quite another for Unilever's CMO to come out with the startling statement that he believes that nearly one-third -- or 29% -- of traffic to the average site comes from bots. That doesn't mean that nearly a third is fake, because some of that could well be "spiders" searching the Web for meaningful content, but it does mean that a substantial proportion is. And it most certainly does mean that 29% of Web traffic should not have advertising served to it, or at least, an advertiser shouldn't pick up the tab for delivering their message to a bot.   ... "

Google Seeking Ad Fraud

In Adage.  A visit to a Google site that is devoted to identifying Ad Fraud.   All this has evolved quite a bit.  Been attacked a few times myself.   Now the attackers are very sophisticated.  Ad fraud has received relatively little attention, because it is less dramatic than deeper financial frauds.  But now  patterns are being sought, and found.  Hopefully these same skills will  be reapplied to make the Net a safer place.