Pay-Per-Click Model Doomed? Another Click Fraud Threat

After reading the posts below from Yahoo! Finance's GOOG message board, it appears that click fraudsters have found yet another reason to engage in the lowly practice--boosting the stock price of the PPC businesses--i.e. Yahoo! and Google. How many clicks does it take to raise GOOG's share price $1? Click fraudsters want to know. Read it all.


"It is as legal as you go to the department stores just browsing and not buying. I bought GOOG at IPO and sold all my shares recently when it hit $425. My reason is that it is about time for the advertisers to find out that the ads are not as effective as they think they are. Sure Google has some mechanicism to filter computer generated clicks and refund some money, but it has no way to outsmart human beings. When I were one of the proud GOOG share holders, I frequently posted here to advise other share holders how to "effectively" click and help increase GOOG revenue. The key point is to use different key words search every time. You always want to use popular key words to generate the maximum revenue for Google, but use the combination only once a day. As for me, I have three computers under my desk. I only use the main one for serious purpose. The other two are connected to my home network, mostly doing computation work. Occasionally I google and click on ad links using these two computers when I feel like it. For those companies, they just think I am one of the consumers come and not buy."

Shocking, sickening and infuriating.

"$500 MILLION from shareholder CLICKS every quarter:
the SEC doesn't care:everyday CLICK at least 50 times, its easy and you help a worthy cause: your checkbook
50 click-throughs per day x 30 days x 3 months x $1 a click = $ 4500 to GOOG bottom line !!!!
all Google shareholders are doing it - JOIN INthere are 100,000 shareholders: $4500 each per quarter means we have been contributing $500 mILLION to google revenues...NOT BAD"

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If you were an advertiser wouldn't you be worried about this? Maybe Google is helping your business, but that does not make fraud tolerable. An easy fix would be to do away with pay-per-click ads, but Google & Yahoo have no incentive to do that. In essence, these companies have a business model allowing them and their owners (shareholders) to print money. And this will persist for as long as advertisers can afford it. So, is Google a pyramid scheme, using the pyramid model as a financial springboard from which to jump into more legitimate businesses? You decide. I already have, and something stinks.