Google CEO says “Suck it Up”
The Google CEO is now saying that click fraud isn’t a big problem; it’ll fix itself. I agree with him, but not for the reasons stated. I think he tries to come off as being honest, but is rather deceptive. His claims:
- It’s still worth it for advertisers to do business with us. Click fraud is part of the “cost of doing business with Google”, and ROI is better than print advertising. True, but at this point it’s an unpredictable cost of doing business.
- The market will correct itself (or, it’s not our problem). Advertisers will pay less when they realize the clicks are bogus. This contradicts the first point. The fact is, advertisers haven’t been leaving Google, even though clickfraud has become rampant. The only way it will affect Google is when advertisers have alternate choices (i.e. when Google has competition).
- We don’t “like” clickfraud, and it’s fun to beat the hackers, so our engineers sometimes fight clickfraud. OK, so clickfraud is perpetrated by evildoers, and we don’t like it (but we like the revenue it brings us). As long as it’s fun, we’ll battle the fraudsters. Thankfully, clickfraud has gotten HUGE since we started fighting it, so there is plenty more fun (and revenue) to be had!
Until Google has credible competition, I don’t see how clickfraud does anything but help Google.