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SEO Tricks: An Open Letter to Online Ad Networks

Started by SEO Manager, August 03, 2009, 04:23:52 PM

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SEO Manager

An Open Letter to Online Ad  Networks
 


<p>by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login</p>
<p>The FTC recently announced guidelines for bloggers that  requires that they disclose financial interests, freebies and paid  reviews.  This decision is seen as a shot  across the bow of pay per post networks and bloggers who are monetizing through  affiliate programs.    The FTC has  decided that compensation is the reason bloggers choose to write about a  particular topic and that readers deserve to be informed about the financial  relationship.    The FTC logic is simple,  â€œAs much as those bloggers who receive  these gifts would like to claim this isn't the case, freebies like free  laptops, trips, or gift cards are likely to influence a writer's opinion of a  product.”   </p>
<p>On its face, the policy is defensible.   As crusaders against Virtual Blight, we  applaud the intent of this decision.  Anything  that raises the barrier to online scams, fraud and abuse even a little bit is a  good thing. The FTC provides guidelines for responsible bloggers and  theoretically eliminates a couple of the perks for bloggers, but it does  virtually nothing to protect against fraud.  </p>
<p>Going after bloggers’ compensation to fight online fraud is  reminiscent of the RIAA attacks on individual file sharers and is just as  likely to succeed. The absurdity of the power and inertia of a government  bureaucracy combating individual bloggers is only matched by the ludicrous  assumption the government could ever move fast enough to keep up with  professional scammers who jump from domain to domain, host to host and country  to country with a few mouse clicks.  Prosecution  could only be effective against mainstream bloggers with an established brand  that are stationary targets, but these bloggers are not the right target.</p>
<p>Getting a proverbial free lunch in exchange for a presumably  positive review may create the appearance that some bloggers are shills who  lend their prestige and celebrity to their sponsors.  That perception is not unreasonable, but the  same charge could be made against almost every athlete, actor, musician or  American Idol runner-up who profits from our celebrity culture.  </p>
<p>Giving items to celebrities or other tastemakers in return  for public exposure is a practice older than the printing press.   If the FTC really wants to send a message  about compensated endorsements and freebies, the answer is not to go after the  mommy bloggers who get a free 42-pack of diapers.  If the FTC were serious, they would begin  arresting every actress wearing a designer gown to the Academy Awards and then  round up the studio and network executives who rake in cash for product  placements in movies and television shows.</p>
<h3>Focus On Fraud</h3>
<p>The statistics for online fraud are both staggering and  predictable.  Instead of being distracted  by the sizzling, sensational charges of payola that re-appear every generation,  the industry needs to focus on the billions of dollars of online fraud  committed each year.  According to the  Center for American Progress, Internet-related consumer complaints are among  the top ten in consumer complaints in 2008 and the number one complaint in four  states.  These complaints run from  auction fraud and non-delivery of ecommerce items to reverse billing scams.</p>
<p>By any definition, the perpetrators of online fraud are not  bloggers.  If a review constitutes fraud  because the reviewer was provided a free product or had some undisclosed  relationship with the company who produced the product, then every journalist  with a 401k full of mutual funds needs to hire a good lawyer.  Indeed, if bloggers are guilty of anything it  is tabloid journalism -- writing low quality content with sensational headlines  designed to attract visitors to their site in order to collect advertising  revenue.  This may not live up to the  highest journalistic standards, but the only crimes are against facts and the  English language.</p>
<p>Criminals are the people and companies who create pyramid  schemes, networks of spam blogs to sell diet products like Hoodia and Acai  Berry cleanse, Google money trees and the myriad so called “free” offers that  create recurring charges on your cell phone or credit card. </p>
<p>Criminals are the people who target kids’ sites to  distribute Trojans, spyware and adware that infects our computers and tricks  people into buying phony anti-virus products.   Most of us have either experienced malware nightmares ourselves or heard  a friend’s sad story.  When online fraud  is so prevalent, predatory and destructive, why are government resources being  committed to pursue advertorial content?</p>
<h3>Ad Networks Are the  Key</h3>
<p>The biggest thing these criminals have in  common is that they perpetrate their scams by buying advertising through ad  networks.  These networks have  achieved the scale that makes it efficient for legitimate advertisers to reach  millions of consumers and that makes them an ideal vector for scams, abuse and  deception.  </p>
<p>In an unregulated auction-based advertising market place,  fraudulent offers can often pay the highest bids for keywords. In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, Aaron observes that ad networks that syndicate ads based on “maximizing yield efficiency“ are  well suited to syndicate fraud. Advertisers of scams can afford to pay top  dollar for ads because their profit margins are nearly 100%.</p>
<p>Ad networks are morally responsible as collaborators in  interstate and international frauds perpetrated upon hundreds of thousands of  victims each year.  Google, Yahoo, AOL,  Microsoft and many others are far more culpable in consumers being defrauded  than any blogger or network of bloggers. </p>
<p>In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login, Harvard’s Ben Edelman estimated that  as much as 70% of the revenue generated by some online scams actually wind up  in the hands of the search engines.   He You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login in 2006 that  Google and Yahoo were making over $200,000 a month from advertisements for  screensaver software which contained spyware.   As of July 15, 2009, the top paid search results on Google for  â€œscreensaver” contain “add-on features” which include spyware, change your  default browser settings, ad toolbars and otherwise aim to monetize by  deceiving users.  Adding insult to  injury, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login that many of these adware tools monetize by sending traffic through AdSense and  DoubleClick, making Google a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login for  adware companies like WhenU and Smiley Central.</p>
<h3>Fight the Problems  that Be</h3>
<p>Scams and fraud not only harm the consumer, they foster the  perception that the internet is not a safe place, hindering the growth of  online business and delaying the transfer of marketing dollars from old  media.  Instead of waiting for government  agencies to step in and create regulations aimed at yesterday’s scams, as an  industry we need to become proactive and develop a cooperative framework for  mutual self-defense, a neighborhood watch designed to keep consumers safer  while helping law enforcement focus resources on the most serious trouble  makers.</p>
<p>The war on online fraud is going to be a huge struggle and  one we are unlikely to ever declare victory.   The issues are complex, but the industry could significantly reduce the  problem by creating a transparent mechanism to collect user feedback about  advertisers.  Search engines and ad  networks are quick to endorse behavioral targeting and social recommendations  to boost earning per exposure.   For some  mysterious reason, they have not applied these innovations to getting user  feedback about advertisers.   </p>
<p>If the Internet is the cesspool that Eric Schmidt, CEO of  Google says it is, one way to start cleaning it up would be to create a public  reputation system for advertisers.  This  would simultaneously reward honest companies while helping consumers protect  themselves against the bad guys.   eBay  created public reputations for buyers and sellers many years ago.  Why are advertisers free to operate without  scrutiny?  </p>
<p>It seems straightforward to build an advertiser rating  system to share relevant statistics and user feedback.  Why not provide the tenure of the advertiser,  normalized click volume, the percentage of users giving feedback and a ratio of  clicks to complaints along with a link to detailed reviews that could surface  fraud, misleading advertising and scams?   If comparison shopping engines can do it, why can’t ad networks?</p>
<p>We don’t claim to have all the answers, but we see the  problem and its sources. Government agencies need to ask the ad networks why  they accept money for promoting fraud.   Ad networks need to grow up and behave like responsible businesses.  </p> <!--break-->
 

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