Comments on: Updated: Google About to Settle Click Fraud Class Action Suit

By: News Report

News Report — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 18:42:52 +0000

The Person responsible for accusing lots of other companies of click fraud is Clarence Briggs of AITCOM.NET

But be Aware of known questionable activities of AIT.COM itself and its CEO Clarence Briggs:

NEWS REPORT:

"AIT.COM CEO Clarence Briggs Charged with Criminal Assault"

"Business executive and soldier get in fight"
09/18/05 at 6:28pm

Fayetteville Observer Newspaper
(http://www.fayettevillenc.com ):

Business executive, soldier in fight

By Paul Woolverton Staff writer

Clarence Briggs, the chief executive of Advanced Internet Technologies, has been charged with knocking an Army soldier to the ground Aug. 26, hitting him in the face and smashing his head into the concrete.

Briggs, in turn, has charged the soldier, Staff Sgt. Rodney Goudy of Fort Bragg, with throwing him to the ground and threatening to kill him.

The violence happened outside the B&B Sports Tavern on Person Street in downtown Fayetteville, records say.

AIT's chief financial officer, Steve Young, has also filed a charge against Goudy from the incident. Young accuses the soldier of threatening to hurt him.

AIT is an international Internet Web-hosting company that Briggs started in his home in Fayetteville in 1996. Its headquarters now fills much of a city block in downtown Fayetteville.

Briggs and Goudy are scheduled to face their charges in Cumberland County District Court on Monday. However, court and Fayetteville police records say that Briggs has not yet been served with the warrant charging him with assaulting Goudy.

...

Goudy, Briggs and Young presented varied accounts of what happened at the bar.

In his charge, Goudy wrote, "Mr. Briggs asked me to go outside to discuss something because the music inside of B&B Sports Bar was loud. When we turned the corner, Mr. Briggs had his arm around me like we were old friends and he stuck his leg out, grabbed me and threw me on the ground, sat on me and proceeded to hit me in the face. He threw my head back into the concrete."

...

Goudy declined a request for an interview. Goudy's lawyer, David Courie, said that his law firm is "investigating scope, severity and frequencies of their alleged behavior," but declined to make further comment.

Young also declined an interview request. Briggs referred questions to AIT spokesman Alex Lekas.

...

Staff writer Paul Woolverton can be reached woolvertonp@fayettevillenc.com or at 486-3512.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The website named Igeryon.org is self-purported focal point for claims of clickfraud against other companies. This site is revealed to be owned by same Clarence Briggs and web hosting company AIT.COM

Domain Name:IGERYON.ORG
Created On:30-Nov-2005 22:28:29 UTC
Last Updated On:04-Oct-2006 12:41:21 UTC
Expiration Date:30-Nov-2007 22:28:29 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Advanced Internet Technologies, Inc. (AIT) (R232-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:AITorgORG7271
Registrant Name:Attention . Clarence Briggs
Registrant Organization:AIT, INC
Registrant Street1:421 Maiden Lane
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Fayetteville
Registrant State/Province:NC
Registrant Postal Code:28301
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.8775492881

Same person, Clarence Briggs, was charged with criminal assault on members of the American armed forces, and beating one in face, as reported in the NEWS. Check yourself into the activities of AIT.COM

Simply type "AIT Reviews" or "AIT.com REVIEWS" or "AIT comments" or "AIT.com hosting company reviews" or your choice into any search and learn about the dealings of the AIT corporation.

By: Jim Rockingham

Jim Rockingham — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:50:41 +0000

Google may claim that they manage the problem of invalid clicks “very well”. But what does that mean? I am sure they do have a large team of expert engineers and analysts devoted to it, but I don’t believe automatic filters are the answer. I believe Google are playing this down because they know it’s a problem they can never really solve. They can reimburse people if the advertisers know or can prove there is a problem. But I would guess they are in the minority. I am convinced this is the tip of the iceberg.

By: AussieWebmaster

AussieWebmaster — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:35:22 +0000

Capping the US click fraud numbers at $90 million backdated to 2002 is a brilliant move on the part of Google. It is an attempt to kill the threat of click fraud to company growth by covering all back liability. The case will be reopened when a company seeks redress and is given a pittance of what is legitimately due him.

This one is a good example of the search industry spin doctors at work. Nothing heavy-handed here - no bold statements of what the ruling fully entails... let it get some distance and have a chance to solidify.

Nice try Google but this one gets reopened and that $90 million will be a small part of solving this problem.

By: Brokerblogger

Brokerblogger — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 21:49:19 +0000

John, I have an advertising background which convinces me that if "make goods" become a legal precedent for search engines, it will have two implications that I put in my my blog post of 3/10/05.

Both implications are great for the search engine, and not as great for the advertiser due to PPC inflationary trends.

By: Joe Hunkins

Joe Hunkins — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 01:03:56 +0000

JJR I think you are either a lucky guy or miscounting. I think it’s very rare to see Google credit 25% for bad clicks – normal is perhaps a 1 or 2 percent credit.

By: JJR

JJR — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 17:26:01 +0000

The size of the settlement has a whole lot to do with how big the problem is. Click fraud is definitely rampant, but the bills you get from Google are, on average, about 25% less than the number of clicks you get. So there's a lot of fraud, but the amount that's getting billed through is a small piece of that.

If the sky is really falling, it shouldn't be so hard to prove that the settlement is less than 1% of their revenue in that time.

By: bryanb

bryanb — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 15:07:16 +0000

Gregbo is right. The amount of the settlement has zero to do with the size of the problem. I bet there are people sitting on the adwords/adsense teams at Google that think “if anybody ever finds out how huge click fraud is, we’re done”. I don’t know how you prove that overseas click farms are fraudulent if you’re an advertiser and have no access to all clicks over time across all ads.

By: gregbo

gregbo — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 07:52:53 +0000

Due to the anonymous nature of the web with regards to search and CPC advertising, there will never be "proof" of click fraud. Individuals may be caught, but no one will ever be able to look at any click stream and prove that it contains fraudulent clicks. There may come a day when ad publishers and SEs agree on what constitutes click fraud, but we're not there yet.

As always, my general thoughts: CPC is a bad business model because of its serious vulnerability to click fraud, and I wonder why Google (and others) did not respond to the threat earlier.

By: Gary Bourgeault

Gary Bourgeault — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 07:30:30 +0000

I think the continuous competition among the giants, with Barry Diller now getting Ask.com going and Mircrosoft unveiling their new, improved search entry, I think that competition and the market will deal with this problem better than anything else.

By: Joe Hunkins

Joe Hunkins — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 05:59:33 +0000

>> it sort of confirms the Google position that it's not billions

No it doesn't! It shows how hard it is to prove click fraud in this case.

Also, in Google's notes on the case, it confirms what a smooth talker they've become. They link to a fairly good study indicating high fraud but suggest it's seriously flawed. More likely - fraud is high as indicated BECAUSE it's hard to prove and lucrative.