Adbusters Suggests Click Fraud As Protest

An anonymous reader writes "In response to Google's recently announced plans to expand the tracking of users, the international anti-advertising magazine Adbusters proposes that we collectively embark on a civil disobedience campaign of intentional, automated 'click fraud' in order to undermine Google's advertising program in order to force Google to adopt a pro-privacy corporate policy. They have released a GreaseMonkey script that automatically clicks on all AdSense ads."

"Protest"?

[MrEricSir]

Won't this just make Google more money?

It's not like the advertisers can go somewhere else. If you want search ads, there's only one place to go.

Why not just block their ads?

[Xtravar]

Actually, I think I already have Google ads blocked...

Will false-positives hurt them more than just adblocking them?

Protest is one approach, but...

[Murpster]

I think the better approach is to give Google the finger and start using other tools.

Adblock?

[Hatta]

Isn't adblock enough? I hate advertising, but as long as I can opt out it's OK with me.

Re:"Protest"?

[biocute]

Not really.

This only makes Google more money if Google keeps those false clicks and charges the advertisers, which will undermine its AdSense products.

And it will cost Google a lot of time and money to validate whether a click is fraud or not if enough people start doing it.

And you really should do it manually, randomly and intermittently, otherwise Google could just delete a bunch of clicks from the same IP address in short timeframe.

The word "Privacy" is fraud here

[bluefoxlucid]

We're talking about tagging cookies to a browser, keeping data browser-end, and having the browser send data back to the server for statistics when ads are served.

Instead, we could skip the cookies. Keep the data on the server, in a database, tied to your IP address and other information collected about you (OS, browser, time of day, etc) and do much more extensive research.

When you clear your cookies, you're removed from Google's "Database" ... YOU are requesting THEM to send you ads based on information YOU are tracking using THEIR program. THEY are not tracking everything you do, because damn, it'd be hard to uniquely identify you when your cookies expire and drop your UUID stored in a cookie and they wind up with 40 database entries for your ONE browser because you clear cookies every session.

uuh -

[no-body]

smells like a lawsuit coming soon....

Re:Adblock?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the free market gives me unusable tv, radio and internet?

They need to get paid somehow

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know how google are expected to continue providing free search, maps, mail and all, if they can't get revenue from somewhere else. Ads work for tv and radio, and apparently for web, too.

Solution or scam helper?

[IamGarageGuy 2]

We have all seen the "make $10,000 a day using adsense" - won't this only increase the ad revenue for these potential scams and in turn have more of these scam ads proliferating the net?

Re:Why not just block their ads?

[BikeHelmet]

Have a conscience. Block them - don't fraudulently click them.

Re:Why not just block their ads?

[geekoid]

"don't fraudulently click them."

what they hell does that mean? how can you fraudulently click something?

Its not that hard...

[nweaver]

A better bit would be a Firefox plugin (you can't do greasemonkey, it needs to be lower down) that just strips all references to google adwords, analytics, and doubleclick and replaces them with noops.

Now google can't track you and you don't see the adds.

While the "clickfraud" solution sounds cute, those are easy easy to detect and Google will just ignore those clicks.

Re:They need to get paid somehow

[rake74]

Then protest by not using their services. If you have ethical concerns about what they're doing, make damn sure your ethics are on target too (and Adblocks is /not/ being ethical - they're being childish). What's wrong with people these days? A company decides to make money, and people get pissed off and try to find way to screw with them? How about the good old fashioned "make a big stink" (protests in the 70s, blogs in 00s) and boycotting? To make a comparison, this is like Rosa Park bus boycott instead being the bus tire slashing. Same idiotic, thug type thinking.

Re:Adblock?

[Tony Hoyle]

This *is* the free market. Problem (ads) appears, solution (adblock) is developed, and becomes popular.

Advertisers have no more right to force me to view their ads than coke has to force me to by fizzy drinks.

Re:"Protest"?

[QuoteMstr]

Nah, just a simple matter of Javascript to test if you have certain pieces of chrome installed relating to this script to determine if the clicks are fake. No Javascript, no ads for the plug-in to click on anyway. Then the plug-in is going to have to randomize where it stores its chrome evade detection.

Advertisers really don't want to get into this arms race. They're bound to lose. The browser has resources at its disposal that no web page can. If someone were so inclined, he could create a method of hiding ads that scripting running in a sandbox couldn't possibly detect. Image elements would seen normal; popup windows could be virtualized.

Oh, sure, advertisers will try to run timing attacks and such, but those can be faked as well. Ultimately, all the advertiser is doing is wasting resources he can better spend creating ads that people don't feel so strongly opposed to seeing.

What a terrible idea..

[Anonymous Coward]

this is a terrible idea. it won't hurt google at all, and will simply get honest web sites banned from the AdSense service. There is essentially no recourse once you're banned so doing this would essentially be disaterous for any site you do it on.

about 3 years back, my buddies and I set up our website with google ads. Apparently, some of our users thought they'd "help us out" by clicking repeatedly. within a week we had been banned from Adsense - and we didn't even know what had happened.

We immediately told our users NOT to do that, and contacted adsense about the situation, and informing them that it had been resolved, and we didn't want the fraudulently obtained payout. Google failed to acknowledge the request, and then banned the personal account of one of the website staff.

we have not been able to get so much as a word out of google since.

You want to protest google, fine, do it in a way that hurts GOOGLE, not their end-users.

Re:Why not just block their ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's similar to going to a table at a store with a plate of food and a sign that says "free samples", dumping the whole plate of free samples into your bag, and running out of the store.

Actually, it's more like dumping them right into the store's trashcan. The store loses, nobody (including the perpetrator) gains.

Re:Adblock?

[martin-boundary]

He's not freeloading. He's (presumably) paying for his net connection. That pays for all the bits that come through the wire to him, and he can do with the bits whatever he likes. That's how the net works.

Those "services" you refer to are being offered by companies of their own free will to web surfers. Kind of like those window washing "services" some people offer freely at busy intersections when the lights are red. That doesn't mean those services are worth anything and they don't need to be paid for unless somebody is feeling charitable.

Re:Why not just block their ads?

[Threni]

> It's how things work in a civil society.

I live in a civil society, and how things apparently work is that we bomb the shit out of other countries to assert our world view... I mean, spread democracy and remove weapons of mass destruction.

Re:I have a better Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

What is with this 'theft' argument? Why is this appearing more and more on /.?

They put something on-line. I'm on-line. I can use it however I like.

Really, are you so deluded as to think it's your responsibility to look at ads? This type of argument is unbelievable! It's akin to telling people they should be better sheep!

Re:Why not just block their ads?

[Joebert]

Advertisers have little if anything to worry about, Google is already setup to refund advertisers for fraudulent clicks.

The publishers who get banned from the program with one of Googles famously vague "Because you're a risk to our advertisers" notices, or who are wondering why they've got thousands of clicks showing up on their account but no revenue, will be hurt.

Re:"Protest"?

[rainsford]

I sympathize with your point of view, and I don't have any plans to run a click fraud script as a form of "protest"...but if I was you, I'd be pissed at Google too. As a small business owner, I'm sure you understand the value of making sure your customers are happy. Big companies like Google tend to forget that, because they can often afford to piss people off in ways that small companies can't. Sure, click fraud that costs you money isn't great, but neither is using an advertising company that invites that kind of response from your customers. So get mad at Slashdotters...fine. But get mad at Google too. And while we're at it, maybe we should be pissed at you. It's your total lack of interest in what your advertiser is doing to your customers on your behalf that gets us privacy invading bullshit like this in the first place.

Re:"Protest"?

[rainsford]

To put my last point a simpler way, I care about your profits exactly the same amount that you care about my privacy...whatever that amount might be.

Re:Adblock?

[DustyShadow]

unwritten social contract????? HA! What a fucking joke.

Re:Adblock?

[SeaFox]

Those "services" are being offered by companies of their own free will under the unwritten social contract that you will look at their ads in return for getting their content.

Experience has taught me that unwritten contract isn't worth the paper it's... oh, wait.

...a lot of ad supported websites (LIKE SLASHDOT) offer heaps of valuable content that, frankly, I don't want to have to pay for.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around information that you don't feel is worth paying for, yet claim has value.

I don't encourage people to block ads. I support your freedom to do it, but just don't complain when more sites start shutting down or moving to subscription services or figure out new was to shove even more invasive ads down your throats as a result of promoting adblocking.

A site that tries to get revenue by being more invasive and annoying then they were when they started? That sounds like a winning idea... If more trashy sites shut down due to the lack of ad revenue, I couldn't be happier. Just trims some of the fat from the web for me. I look forward to a day when more of the search results I pull up in Google are relevant, informative sites instead of marketing drivel simply because there are fewer worthless sites in the catalog to list.

Re:Adblock?

[trawg]

Is it? It's the same sort of thing that says you won't go into a bookshop and stand there reading an entire book. It's the same sort of thing that stops you from going to a food shop that has a free sample thing and eating the whole plate.

Sure, you /can/ do those things, but really - it makes you a bit of a dick.

Re:"Protest"?

[Idiomatick]

50% of my post is asking for ways to get youtube(google) to stop doing something evil.... yet you think its fud on google's behalf.... interesting.

Re:Why not just block their ads?

[N1AK]

A quick look at the California law shows plenty of ambiguity.

With all due respect FatdogHaiku there is no ambiguity at all. Every one of those requires the act to be without permission. There is no way in hell they could argue that following a link publicly distributed as an advertisement could be seen as acting without permission.

Re:Why not just block their ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah; but I'm not.