How Fixing Broken Windows Can Decrease Click Fraud
There is a theory in law enforcement that goes something like this: If someone breaks a window in a building, and it isn’t fixed quickly, others will soon be broken. As the evidence of neglect builds, vandals will be more emboldened to break into the building and commit more vandalism and eventually destroy it completely. If, on the other hand, that window is promptly fixed, it discourages further crime because it is clear that someone is watching the store. Further, if instead of just fixing the window, you find the vandal and hold them accountable for it, a message goes out loud and clear: we’re watching and you will get caught. The problem with the broken windows theory is that it requires more than police action to put into practice. If the community isn’t involved in the cleanup effort, the initiative fails. When the community is drawn in to help police the problems, to report them and to ‘mind the store’, so to speak, crime rates drop. This theory can be extended to police nearly any venue where there is unacceptable behavior - including the problem of click fraud in the venue of PPC advertising. At the moment, the PPC industry is like a vacant building with nobody watching the store. It’s easy to enter fraudulent clicks. It’s even easier to get away with it. At the moment, a large percentage of advertisers leave the detection of fraudulent clicks up to the PPC provider - and the policy of most PPC providers is that they will provide refunds for proven click fraud upon request from the advertiser. What happens when: - The PPC provider’s software detection methods don’t catch the click fraud? - The advertiser doesn’t use fraud detection software? - The advertiser can’t back up the claim of click fraud? - The major players in the industry refer to the problem as ‘negligible’? Simply put - the click fraudster gets away with it. The rewards are enormous - estimates put the amount of money lost to click fraud in the range of billions of dollars annually. But the loss to any individual advertiser is usually negligible, and even Google sees refunding money to advertisers as no more than the cost of doing business. If we’re ever going to put a dent in click fraud, three things have to happen. 1. Advertisers have to take responsibility for monitoring their own campaigns. If you don’t know it’s happening, you can’t take steps to stop it. 2. Advertisers need to use the information they generate through their analytics to demand refunds from the PPC companies on a consistent basis. As long as the losses are minor compared to the profits for the PPC companies, their incentive for responding is limited. 3. Click fraud perpetrators have to be identified, actively pursued and penalized. Currently, modern techniques that use proxies and ‘zombie networks’ can make it almost impossible to identify and punish offenders. Those are the three elements of the Broken Window theory that make it work - community action, official backing and action and penalizing perpetrators. The first element in combating click fraud as a community is in getting click fraud prevention and tracking software into the hands of all advertisers. The difficulty of sifting through hundreds of pages of data to make comparisons and weed out patterns that signal click fraud is a daunting one for most companies. Click fraud detection software makes it almost painless - but can be expensive. Other parts of the internet market have benefited from open sourcing of software to manage content, manipulate graphics, and create communities and process payments. An open offering of free click fraud prevention software will encourage advertisers to start monitoring their own logs and records and identify potential fraudulent clicks. In addition, an open offering encourages others to modify and extend the software and make those extensions available to the community at large. With those monitors in place, the second part of the equation becomes more possible. When it’s easy for advertisers to identify and document fraudulent clicks on their campaigns, it becomes that much easier for them to demand refunds for those clicks. The third part is an outgrowth of creating a community that actively works to eliminate click fraud. For the time being, click fraudsters are loose in a neighborhood of broken windows. With the right tools, we can begin to repair the windows and create a community that makes it nearly impossible to get away with their tactics. Jay Stockwell has been fighting click fraud since 1999. In 2004 he developed the first version of Click Sentinel which was released 6 months later to critical acclaim. His release of <a href="http://www.clicksentinel.com">Click Sentinel</a> (Version 2) redefines how click fraud should be addressed.
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There be Spyware here, Captain!
The ships bell had just sounded the dogwatch as Captain Skag began to check his email. He had just began to read his favorite E-zine, “Pirates gone wild” when his first mate burst into the cabin. “Captain, a dark ship approaches!” He cried. The captain, after running up on deck, examined the ship with his spyglass. “Shiver me hard drives” he bellowed as he saw the lay of her jib. “Shes a wardriver! ” (Note of historical Interest, a Wardriver is a term used to describe a way of searching for unsecure wireless networks.) “They be after plundering information on the ships server! Quick me mateys, prepare to repel boarders.” The crew scrambled to turn their laptops off while the Captain rushed to turn the wireless router off. Up on deck, the crew watched as the dark ship faded into the night. The Captain had no sooner settled back at his computer when again the cabin door burst open, this time it was the cook. “Blimey Captain, all my recipes files are gone!” This was bad news because the cooks famous secret recipe for chile con carne was highly sought after since winning 1st place at the Pirates ball last year. Thank the Kraken we have our backups” the Captain growled. The cook, cursing, left. Well, back to my email the captain thought. He pushed the send/receive button on his email client. “Blow me down” he bellowed, (Pirate Captains bellow a lot) “Whats all this SPAM mail doing in my inbox?” This was getting as back as a case of scurvy. As he sat, his rage boiling, he became aware of a lot of yelling coming from the crews quarters. “Now what” he cursed as he made his way forward. Upon entering the crew area he was assailed by a thunderous din of curses. (Pirates curse a lot) The Spainiard was yelling he couldn’t get his new game, “Pirates Revenge ” to load. The Italian couldn’t get into his stock portfolio. (Yes pirates have retirement plans too). The others were drowned out by the first mate yelling about his Blog being Hacked. As he surveyed the carnage, the captain noticed one of the crewman sitting calmly, using his laptop with apparently no problems. Bellowing loudly for quiet, he asked the crewman who he now remembered came from the land of Unix, why he was not upset. He looked up, and said “Why Captain, I’ve got a AntiVirus program along with good AntiSpyware and a reliable Firewall. I’m protected from brute force attacks, Phishing emails and drive by downloads.” He went on to say that it looked like the ships server was accessed through the wireless router, which was not secured with WEP (wired/wireless equivalent privacy). “Arrrgg”, he bellowed, the IT dogs back at the Island hideaway had told him all was peachy with the network when they sailed to pilage and plunder. The crewman whose name was Billy said he could get things ship shape by giving the other crewman the CD’s of his AntiSpyware, AntiVirus and his 3rd party Firewall…. for a price! “Aye,” the Captain replied wit a feeling of dread, “Whats your price?” Soon all onboard were back online and secure. Billy had his pockets stuffed with pieces of eight and of course, was wearing the Captains hat, looking mighty pleased with his bargaining skills. The Captain headed back to his cabin, worried that mutiny may be afoot. He had heard Billy telling the crew about those cursed Macs! The lesson learned here was obvious; You need to secure your network. AntiVirus and AntiSpyware is a must, So is a reliable Firewall. Anything less, you might as well be walking the plank, Matey! Arrrrgggg! About the Author: Doug Woodall has a website at http://www.spywarebiz.com There he provides free information and recommended products to combat Spyware, Viruses and other Online Nasties.
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Security Accessible Through Accessibility
The e-commerce thrust around the globe has generated the need for secure Internet transactions. The two key fundamentals of secure business dealings are authentication and authorization. Hence, access control deployment is on the rise, and their market is growing rapidly. The access control equipments help in constructing centralized access control. These products authenticate the user & then authorize them to access resources for which permission has been given. But this is limited to a certain zone beyond which the product loses its network. Systems of access control are becoming quite common & their uses are growing, both in public and private sectors. Thus, both of these sectors are deploying access control equipments for various applications ranging from keeping a record of time and attendance to physical access. This has largely helped in reducing the crime and fraud cases that takes place in the society. The low-cost resolution technology ascendancies, magnetic stripes & card systems for automatic identification are rapidly gaining popularity. Thus, the access control systems market is growing rapidly and money is spinning like never before. Web access control has two fundamental design models. The first model is known as the “plug-in” model. In this particular model, software based programs are installed in every Web server so as to protect the product. The second model is called the “proxy” model. This model uses one or more than one proxy servers so as to regulate Web accessibility. A single proxy server takes care of numerous Web servers, however, recommendation is given to use two for redundancies. To avail further information on Access Control Technologies, their market potentiality and future forecast, read the report: “Access Control Technologies and Market Forecast World Over (2007)” published by RNCOS at: http://www.rncos.com/Report/COM19.htm RNCOS is an industry leader in the field of online business research. We specialize in industry research on various business verticals. To read our other reports, visit us at: - http://www.rncos.com/Report.htm or email us at info@rncos.com To get the latest news visit our newly launched Blog section at http://www.rncos.com/Blog/ We provide global business information for industry research, business consulting, & bring reputed companies and firms to us for business enhancement solutions.
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