Click Fraud and the Problem of Authenticating People
Once again Bruce Schneier hits the nail on head with his exceptionally insightful article about click fraud and the problem of authenticating people. With his usual eloquence, and his ability to get right to the point without useless prose, Schneier explains why solving the click fraud problem is imperative.
Googles $6 billion-a-year advertising business is at risk because it cant be sure that anyone is looking at its ads. The problem is called click fraud, and it comes in two basic flavors.
Google is testing a new advertising model to deal with click fraud: cost-per-action ads. Advertisers don’t pay unless the customer performs a certain action: buys a product, fills out a survey, whatever. It’s a hard model to make work — Google would become more of a partner in the final sale instead of an indifferent displayer of advertising — but it’s the right security response to click fraud: Change the rules of the game so that click fraud doesn’t matter.
That’s how to solve a security problem.
Google is definitely taking the right path on this one. The wise words, from an even wiser security expert, should not be ignored.