DoubleClick Performics Survey Reveals Over Half of Consumers Utilize Internet As Primary Source for Collecting Automotive Information in the Final Days Before Making a Purchase
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In a recent survey conducted by DoubleClick Performics, the performance  marketing division of DoubleClick Inc., results highlighted the  expanding influence of the Internet, specifically local search, for  consumers gathering information to make an automobile purchase.
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Also: Microsoft's Mundie: Consumers driving tech trends. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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The UK is matching US trends in internet use, with the number of online shoppers set to double, a survey says.
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Over half of online US households are using broadband to access the internet, according to new research.
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About 38 percent of U.S.  consumers are watching TV shows online, 36 percent use their  cell phones as entertainment devices and 45 percent are  creating online content like Web sites, music, videos and blogs  for others, according to a new-media survey from Deloitte &  Touche.
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More than 100 million Americans, or three out of every five Internet users, viewed video online in July, a new study finds.
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(InfoWorld) - The battle between advertisers and online search networks over the pervasiveness of click-fraud continues to grow more heated with researchers claiming rapid growth of automated ad impressions and outside observers noting an overall lack of transparency in the space. According to a research report issued on July 19 by Click Forensics -- which markets services used by advertisers to analyze online advertisement traffic -- the average click-fraud rate for Web ads was 15.8 percent across the industry during the second quarter of 2007. The result indicates a 14.1 percent increase in click fraud when compared to the same period last year and a 14.8 percent gain over the first quarter of this year, based on the company's numbers. Further, Click Forensics contends that the fraud rate within pay-per-click networks run by industry leaders, including Google and Yahoo, accounted for 25.6 percent of all traffic during the second quarter, representing a 21.9 percent gain over the same timeframe in 2006 and a 19.2 percent leap in fraudulent hits compared to Q1 2007. Contributing heavily to the significant gains in contested impressions, Click Forensics maintains, was the increased use of hijacked botnet PCs to manipulate online traffic. While not offering concrete statistics on the trend, Click Forensics' research showed that such activity roughly doubled over the second quarter. Market watchers have been trumpeting massive growth of the online ad sector in 2007, and rightfully so, said Tom Cuthbert, chief executive of Click Forensics. However, if the online space is going maintain credibility with advertisers going forward, Cuthbert said, those who control the largest networks must begin working harder to track and eliminate inflated results. New York-based market research firm eMarketer has predicted that the North American online advertising segment alone will grow by more than $3 billion in 2007 to reach $19.5 billion by the end of this year. "The problem only appears to be getting worse within the content networks run by companies like Google and Yahoo, it's very concerning to advertisers, and the botnet issue appears to be fueling this growth," Cuthbert said. "A big part of the problem is that the content networks themselves aren't doing enough to look for traffic coming from automated sites and parked domains that only exist to create fraudulent clicks," he said. "We see a lot of this low-quality traffic occurring inside those networks." Click Forensics gathers its research data from Click Fraud Network, an effort it sponsors that aggregates information provided by the company's advertising customers about the advertising traffic that they receive. Yahoo representatives did not discredit the Click Forensics report but defended that the company is weeding out fraudulent ad hits and working to ensure that its customers only pay for legitimate traffic. "We've dedicated significant resources to delivering high-quality traffic to our advertisers and have identified and not billed for 12 to 15 percent of the clicks on our network [as a result of click-fraud]," said Reggie Davis, vice president of marketplace quality at Yahoo. The company is also launching new programs to help offer its advertisers a better idea of what they're paying for, Davis said. "Yahoo is also actively pursuing numerous new quality initiatives that provide advertisers with more control over and visibility into the quality of their traffic," he said. "We've recently launched new features and functionality for advertisers like quality-based pricing and enhanced geo-targeting tools, and we plan to introduce additional controls like domain blocking in the coming months." Google representatives contend, however, that Click Forensics is manipulating its numbers to make the rate of click fraud appear much higher than it actually is. A good deal of the traffic being counted by Click Forensics as click fraud is already identified as such by Google's own filters, the company said in a statement, which means its advertisers never get charged for those hits. "This estimate counts clicks Google does not charge to advertisers as fraudulent, so it is not actually a click-fraud estimate," Google said in the statement. "It is also worth noting that in all of 2007, only two advertisers have contacted us regarding click fraud data from Click Forensics, and in both cases, we found that the suspicious activity was not charged-for in the first place." Media representatives at Google labeled the Click Forensics report as an intentional effort to generate fear and drive interest in its own ad performance tracking services. The company has a firm grasp on click fraud and is devoting more resources than ever to combating the problem, the Google representative said. One of the biggest questions facing Click Forensics in defending its research is just where its numbers come from and how it quantifies the activity of botnets, which are often comprised of larger numbers of machines that spread traffic out as to evade discovery by behavior-monitoring filters. Cuthbert said that Click Fraud Network has attracted a large enough group of advertisers to garner accurate averages in traffic activity and countered that the firm has access to such data as the behaviors exhibited by bots once they arrive on its customers' sites that Google will never be privy to. "We use people from Symantec and Yahoo and eBay to help us determine these findings and approach the issue in a very scientific way that utilizes heuristics for identifying traffic for botnets and pay-for-click sites," Cuthbert said. "Our customers are drawing data from across multiple networks, which allows us to compare results; we get that behavior information about what a visitor does after they get to the site which tells us a lot about who they might be." For instance, when Click Forensics notices hits coming from a particular source on a regular pattern -- such as a new click every 2.5 seconds -- it's easy to tell what traffic might be generated by bots, he said. Cuthbert also noted that his company's methodology was examined by Dr. Alexander Tuzhilin, a professor at New York University who examined Google's click fraud practices and wrote a report used as part of the $90 million click-fraud settlement the search company reached with advertisers in March 2006. Other click-fraud experts, such as Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Law School who has done extensive research in the area for a number of years, agreed that the problem continues to grow and that it's hard to believe which camp has more accurate numbers. However, the researcher's own recent experiments don't always gel with Click Forensics' observations. Edelman said that a system he has employed to monitor click-fraud activity on advertising networks by attempting to carry out the behavior has been able to scam just about every popular system, including that controlled by Yahoo's Omniture group. However, the "robot PC" he created to carry out the click fraud wasn't able to create false impressions on Google's AdWords, which impressed the Web economics expert. "The core problem is that it is still hard to determine whether the supposed clicks occurred, the search engines will always dispute published figures, and advertisers will be left uncertain who to believe," Edelman said. "In my own work using the robot, I've observed click fraud through almost every network, but not AdWords, not that it means it doesn't happen." One of the problems in figuring out to what extent click fraud is influencing ad traffic is that neither the search networks nor their advertisers are particularly open with the data they retain about user behavior, he said. People submit complaints to the search companies on an individual basis, but little comes of the reports other than automated responses, according to Edelman. One approach that could help address the issue would be if companies like Google and Yahoo created message boards where advertisers could compare notes and draw conclusions about their shared experiences, the researcher contends. Just as Apple has allowed its customers to vent about product problems in its public forums, the search networks could prove their diligence in fighting click fraud if they allowed customers to share information in public, the expert suggested. "A different way to run the traffic auditing and review process would be to add this transparency, to allow crowds of advertisers to expose their problems and share complaints, that would allow much less leeway for the search providers to bury their results," said Edelman. "It's clear why they might not want to do that, but they could do it if they were really confident that there's no problem to be exposed." Faced with the proposition, Google representatives said that the company would consider such an idea, but indicated that for now, it harbors no plans to introduce such a program. "Without that type of transparency, the extent of the click-fraud problem will remain tough to nail down," Edelman said.
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Private videos seem to be escaping to the internet in droves. Do we care? In Sex Drive Daily.
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Early Internet entrepreneurs envisioned a day when consumers would devour short bites of entertainment on their computer screens delivered over the Internet by fat broadband pipes. When the companies failed, executives blamed it on ...
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Blog: Women are the primary user of digital SLRs in more than half of households surveyed, new study data shows.
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Companies like Google and Yahoo that control major online advertising networks have not met their pledge to aggressively ferret-out click fraud among their affiliate partners, driving growth of the problem across the entire Web industry, according to new research estimates.Click Forensics -- an independent click fraud monitoring and reporting service that markets itself as an online version of the TV industry's Nielsen ratings system -- released its latest statistics tracking Internet advertising trends on Friday, and the group reported that the issue of fraudulent ad traffic continues thrive on the Web.According to the company, roughly 16.2 percent of all online ad clicks were derived via click fraud during the third quarter of 2007 compared to a rate of 13.8 percent for the same period during 2006 and up from 15.8 percent of all traffic during the second quarter of this year.Even more concerning, Click Forensics leaders said, is the report's finding that the average rate of click fraud -- most often carried out by software programs designed to mimic legitimate traffic -- continues to rise on major search engine networks, including Google's AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network.Fraudulent traffic accounted for 28.1 percent of all ad hits on such networks during the third quarter of 2007 compared to 25.6 percent for the second quarter of this year and 21.9 percent for the first three months of the calendar, Click Forensics contends.The research company also reported that more than 60 percent of all ad traffic coming from so-called parked domains -- typically used solely to funnel traffic to advertisers -- was observed as being fraudulent during the third quarter of 2007.Tom Cuthbert, chief executive of Click Forensics, said that as a result of the negative impact that click fraud is having on Web advertising as a whole -- in that it undermines the legitimacy of all Internet ad traffic -- both publishers and advertisers are feeling a pinch.Ad publishers are seeing a diminishing of their network traffic quality, said Cuthbert, while advertisers are seeing their conversion rates "drop significantly" on content networks and are pulling back some of their spending as a result, he said."The issue of click fraud on these major networks is becoming a real problem for advertisers, and increasingly, they are choosing to stay away and look into other alternatives," Cuthbert said. "The big guys are not doing a better job of policing themselves; both Google and Yahoo have tools for advertisers to opt-out of suspected click fraud sites, but the vast majority of advertisers are not doing so, and the tools are too hard to use."Cuthbert said that the major network providers have promised to cooperate with efforts to drive down automated ad clicks and other forms of fraud but have not followed through on their promises."We've asked the search engines to work with us to improve the situation, and they've said yes, but here we are 18 months later, and we've seen no movement in that area, which is frustrating for us and for advertisers as a whole," said Cuthbert. "So far, we've had a great process of discussion, but we're really hoping to see them act on those ideas."Ideally, Click Forensics -- which claims to derive its figures from statistics provided by 4,000 advertisers and agencies participating in its Click Fraud Network consortium -- would like to serve as an objective third party that is used as a clearinghouse for identifying online ad fraud, much as Nielsen provides rating figures for the TV industry.Without such an entity, the ad networks continue to hold most of the cards, leaving advertisers at a disadvantage, he said."There needs to be better communication and sharing of data. We have information about traffic that these guys don't have, such as conversion data and other things from the actual advertisers, that they're very skeptical to give to Google or Yahoo," said Cuthbert. "Ultimately, we believe that the first provider to embrace this third-party model we're proposing will have a significant advantage over its rivals."Google disputes Click Forensics' figures Yahoo representatives didn't immediately return calls seeking comment on the Click Forensics report, but Google officials countered that Click Forensics' estimates don't accurately represent the company's own click fraud statistics.While Click Forensics has its 4,000 partners, the search giant claims to view a far broader and detailed swath of ad traffic, giving it a more comprehensive perspective. Google has consistently questioned the legitimacy of Click Forensics' figures since the company began issuing its reports in 2006."These estimates have never reflected the invalid click rates we see at Google; Click Forensics has consistently been one of the highest estimates our there with numerous serious methodology problems, and, as such, we rarely get asked about them these day," said Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager for the Trust &amp; Safety group at Google.Ghosemajumder said that Google offers "significantly more transparency" into its click fraud efforts and provides more traffic quality tools for advertisers than any of its rivals."We plan to do even more in the future," he said.Among the measures that Google has employed to help advertisers thwart click fraud were the launch of new IP exclusion and Placement Performance Reports in June, tools that Ghosemajumder labeled as unique features in the industry.The IP exclusion tool is meant to allow advertisers to specify IP addresses they want to avoid with their ads and builds on the site exclusion feature the company introduced in 2005, which allows advertisers to prohibit specific URLs from showing their content.The Placement Performance Reports are designed to give advertisers the ability to view which sites are performing the best among those displaying their content, which specifically arms the companies with the opportunity to use the site exclusion and site targeting tools drive out any apparent fraud, Google said.In August, the search giant also launched an Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center, which is meant to offer a single place where advertisers can access all of Google's click fraud resources.Some smaller search providers believe that they can begin winning advertisers' business away from their larger rivals by providing stronger methods of fighting click fraud.Daniel Yomtobian, chief executive of ABCSearch, said that his company has begun luring large, well-known advertisers like VeriSign away from other venues with a tool dubbed ClickShield, which promises to profile advertising affiliate behavior to give its customers better insight into just how their content is being distributed.Yomtobian points out that Click Defense, an online marketing firm that offers independent click fraud detection services, recently charted his company's traffic as having less than 5 percent fraudulent ad hits."As an industry we can't burden the advertisers and can't burden the users, as ad networks we all need to do a better job and police affiliates to drive down fraud," he said. "A lot of our competitors talk about their technologies to fight this problem, but a lot of that work is merely basic click fraud-blocking; by going above and beyond, we feel that we can grow our business based on delivery of a lower rate of unwanted traffic."
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(InfoWorld) - Web surfers in the U.K. spend more time online than those in the rest of Europe or the U.S., according to results from a study released on Monday. The average U.K. Internet user spends 34.4 hours on the Web each month -- or almost a day and a half -- followed by the Swedes with 31.7 hours and the Spanish with 30.6 hours, according to the figures, from comScore's World Metrix study. The U.K. and Sweden also beat out the U.S., where the average Web surfer spends 31.4 hours online each month, the study found. Asked to explain the U.K.'s high usage rates, Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe, cited an increase in broadband usage and Britain's poor weather. Germany has Europe's biggest Internet population, with 35.6 million people, although Germans spend less time in front of their computers on average, racking up just 22.6 hours online each month. The average for Europe is 24.1 hours per month. The Netherlands has the greatest Internet penetration, at 83 percent, followed by Norway and Sweden with 70 percent each. Russia came last with 11 percent Internet penetration. The figures come with several caveats: They include only Internet users aged 15 and older, and are based on data from 16 of Europe's biggest markets, with the numbers extrapolated to find averages for the rest of the continent. They are based on data collected in April from PCs at home and at work, and do not include Internet access from mobile phones and Internet cafes. On average there were 122 million Europeans online each day in April, compared to 114 million in the U.S., comScore said. Web sites owned by Google generated the most page views in most of the countries, followed by those of Microsoft. The countries studied were Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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JupiterResearch,  a leading authority on the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer  technologies on business, has found that 34 percent of adult online  users (54 million people) in the U.S.
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In its latest study of Americans&#39; online habits, the Pew Internet &amp; American Life Project found that a substantial chunk of internet users want to voice their opinions online.
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Web portal Yahoo and media agency OMD unveiled the findings of an Internet Deprivation Study examining consumers&#39; media habits and their emotional connection to the internet.
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Users are beginning to show interest in new 3G (third-generation) higher-speed mobile phones after operators, particularly in Europe, spent lavishly to market the new service in the run-up to the crucial holiday buying season.ADVERTISEMENTReducing the Total Cost of OwnershipLearn how to reduce the total coast of ownership in enterprise data management in this case study.
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Chevrolet asks web users to make their own video spots for its Tahoe SUV. A case study in customer-generated advertising. By Frank Rose from Wired magazine.