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But it is seriously damaging to their company and there are other things they could do: If they notice apparent click-fraud, they should suspend payments and n

But it is seriously damaging to their company and there are other things they could do: If they notice apparent click-fraud, they should suspend payments and notify the account holders. If the fraud continues (either this one issue or if it repeats regularly)[1], shut them down. Like it or not, Google (and others like eBay) have put themselves in the position of supplying people's livelihood. There needs to be more respect for that fact. They've shown that they believe their algorithms can be wrong by reinstating people's accounts when stupid crap like this hits, but I contend that is not good enough. Crap like this should just not be hitting. They can have automated systems and reasonable algorithms at the same time. 1. Some will probably say this gives fraudsters more chances to learn Google's algorithms. How hard is it to create a new account?

chimi 14y ago
I would say a 99.9999% success rate is a reasonable algorithm.
- knowaveragejoe 14y ago
  I would say that statistic is entirely flawed, since we're not only talking about Partner accounts which are far, far less in number than the 100,000,000 figure cited, but the likely minuscule percentage of them actually generating any substantial revenue.
  - chimi 14y ago
    Probably because I made it up. Look, the post had what, 4 very one-sided arguments from people whose credibility is unknown claiming they are honest and Google is cheating them out of money and a couple more who weren't even smart enough to realize they in fact were the very kind of fraudsters Google's algorithms are designed to catch. Even if it's 99% finding a person to employ who would make fewer mistakes would be a stellar employee -- good luck. Even if you could, at that scale there'd be a tiny fraction of people who actually made money. How many of the cases of "OMG, Google is shutting me down!" have legitimate grievances? Maybe a tiny fraction? How many of those are "worth" investigating? Even smaller fraction. Heck, those complainers on that guy's blog could have been making $4 a month, who knows. All this has been a complete waste of time. Let's talk about something important. I'm usually not one to defend Google, but in this case, they are behaving exactly perfectly. Get back to work.

chimi 14y ago

I would say a 99.9999% success rate is a reasonable algorithm.

knowaveragejoe 14y ago
I would say that statistic is entirely flawed, since we're not only talking about Partner accounts which are far, far less in number than the 100,000,000 figure cited, but the likely minuscule percentage of them actually generating any substantial revenue.
- chimi 14y ago
  Probably because I made it up. Look, the post had what, 4 very one-sided arguments from people whose credibility is unknown claiming they are honest and Google is cheating them out of money and a couple more who weren't even smart enough to realize they in fact were the very kind of fraudsters Google's algorithms are designed to catch. Even if it's 99% finding a person to employ who would make fewer mistakes would be a stellar employee -- good luck. Even if you could, at that scale there'd be a tiny fraction of people who actually made money. How many of the cases of "OMG, Google is shutting me down!" have legitimate grievances? Maybe a tiny fraction? How many of those are "worth" investigating? Even smaller fraction. Heck, those complainers on that guy's blog could have been making $4 a month, who knows. All this has been a complete waste of time. Let's talk about something important. I'm usually not one to defend Google, but in this case, they are behaving exactly perfectly. Get back to work.