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I do wonder since he is using a gmail account if it is a honeytrap. That seems like a very, very dumb thing to do if one's objective is to defraud Google. His

I do wonder since he is using a gmail account if it is a honeytrap. That seems like a very, very dumb thing to do if one's objective is to defraud Google. His entire client list will be accessible through them.

jusben1369 12y ago
Does he really defraud Google? They're still getting paid.
- opendais 12y ago
  I suppose that was the wrong phrasing. I should have said defraud Google's customers.
- cyorir 12y ago
  At the very least, it devalues Google's own service. Victims of this service will see lowered impact of advertising through Google, so they are more likely to simply drop/lower reliance on Google as a form of advertising and look for alternatives.
- dangrossman 12y ago
  They get paid for another month, or maybe a few, until the advertiser sees that their ads now cost more than the revenue they bring in, as the fake/purchased clicks don't ever buy the company's products or services. At that point logic dictates that they cancel their ads with Google. Google would have earned that bit of money either way, but now they've lost all the future revenues from that business. If you dig into almost any AdWords account and make a custom report that includes the "invalid clicks" column, you'll see that they already don't charge advertisers for a very large percentage of ad clicks. I have an "invalid activity" credit in my billing statement just about every month, which is an automatic refund for potentially fraudulent clicks that weren't detected immediately. You don't generally have to ask for the refunds, it's in their best interest to cancel those clicks and keep advertisers' ROI positive so they continue paying in future months.
  - JustinJBM 12y ago
    This is about Company A removing Company B, C, D, & E from the search results so that Company A gets all the sales and leads from that day. Company A would be happy if it scares them away permanently -- then they don't even have to pay the Hacker to deplete their daily budget anymore. These particular hackers obviously have a service that Google's Invalid Clicks detection cannot pick up and it's successfully depleting advertisers' budgets -- hence the positive reviews they have.
    - dangrossman 12y ago
      Right. You can only remove Company B-E's ads by depleting their daily budgets. The service Company A paid for does not include purchasing Company B-E's products or services, just knocking out their ads. Those advertisers will see a negative ROI from their Google ads and eventually cancel them. Now Google has lost four customers and the one that remains no longer has to compete for ad space. Google loses all of Company B-E's ad spend, and most of Company A's ad spend as it can drastically lower its bids. They are not "still being paid", which is why they are heavily incentivized to identify this fraud and ignore or refund for the clicks that company is generating.
deleted 12y ago
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jusben1369 12y ago

Does he really defraud Google? They're still getting paid.

opendais 12y ago
I suppose that was the wrong phrasing. I should have said defraud Google's customers.
cyorir 12y ago
At the very least, it devalues Google's own service. Victims of this service will see lowered impact of advertising through Google, so they are more likely to simply drop/lower reliance on Google as a form of advertising and look for alternatives.
dangrossman 12y ago
They get paid for another month, or maybe a few, until the advertiser sees that their ads now cost more than the revenue they bring in, as the fake/purchased clicks don't ever buy the company's products or services. At that point logic dictates that they cancel their ads with Google. Google would have earned that bit of money either way, but now they've lost all the future revenues from that business. If you dig into almost any AdWords account and make a custom report that includes the "invalid clicks" column, you'll see that they already don't charge advertisers for a very large percentage of ad clicks. I have an "invalid activity" credit in my billing statement just about every month, which is an automatic refund for potentially fraudulent clicks that weren't detected immediately. You don't generally have to ask for the refunds, it's in their best interest to cancel those clicks and keep advertisers' ROI positive so they continue paying in future months.
- JustinJBM 12y ago
  This is about Company A removing Company B, C, D, & E from the search results so that Company A gets all the sales and leads from that day. Company A would be happy if it scares them away permanently -- then they don't even have to pay the Hacker to deplete their daily budget anymore. These particular hackers obviously have a service that Google's Invalid Clicks detection cannot pick up and it's successfully depleting advertisers' budgets -- hence the positive reviews they have.
  - dangrossman 12y ago
    Right. You can only remove Company B-E's ads by depleting their daily budgets. The service Company A paid for does not include purchasing Company B-E's products or services, just knocking out their ads. Those advertisers will see a negative ROI from their Google ads and eventually cancel them. Now Google has lost four customers and the one that remains no longer has to compete for ad space. Google loses all of Company B-E's ad spend, and most of Company A's ad spend as it can drastically lower its bids. They are not "still being paid", which is why they are heavily incentivized to identify this fraud and ignore or refund for the clicks that company is generating.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]