by Media Optimiser
O. Gaywood
US based click fraud monitoring service Anchor Intelligence has discovered a 1000-strong click fraud ring in China, that affected more than 2000 advertisers, as well as a network of compromised computers set up to hijack Google's search result pages. O. Gaywood
Members of the click fraud group set up websites with ad networks and clicked on one another's adverts in an attempt to swindle the pay-per-click merchants. The practice is quite common among PPC mobsters but it's normally on a much smaller scale and much easier to find. With organisations hauling in more than 1000 willing participants there are fears the practise could be coming much more widespread.
During Anchor's surveillance of the group it generated more than $3m illegally across 200,000 different IP addresses.
Richard Sim, vice-president of Anchor, said: "We have seen 200 fraud rings and this one by far trumps them all."
In an unrelated crime spree Click Forensics has discovered that a network of compromised computers is more advanced than previously thought. The PCs have been set up to hijack Google searches, taking users to an ad network rather than the actual link they clicked on.
A post on the Click Forensics blog said: "We have found that it acts as a sort of perverted 'Robin Hood' among ad networks by robbing ad revenue from the top-tier players and delivering fraudulent traffic to second and third-tier ad networks and publishers."
