The Connection Between PTR and Click Fraud

Wired had a good article about click fraud, but as with most articles, didn't really cover the PTR connection (mainly because PTR isn't really on the mainstream radar). They did mention Indian 'click farms', which did hit the radar screens a few years ago, but I don't think many in the media understand that PTR creates a sort of global click farm that sucks money from advertisers several tiers down from those who generally advertise through Google, Yahoo! and Overture.

For anybody who doesn't get the whole click fraud thing and how it works in PTR, here's my basic explanation. Any time a PTR member does a search on a PPC search engine, types in a ZIP code or email address, or does any other action just because they're getting paid for it and not because they're really interested in the advertisers' products, that's click fraud.

All those fractions of cents really are adding up to a lot of money being stolen from advertisers. And that really sucks.