A note on click fraud, and being honest.

Recently, a few bloggers have expressed their displeasure at having their cash out disabled or their account temporarily suspended. However, we would like to reassure the majority of our users that we will not disable an account or freeze earnings unless one or more of these conditions are met:

- The blogger has been clicking on his/her own ads (click fraud)
- The blogger has been asking visitors to click on his/her own ads. (invalid clicks)

After an account has been frozen, we will then manually conduct an investigation to determine the extent of the fraud, and then decide whether to terminate or suspend the account. Accounts are never terminated without physical human intervention. In better news, a few honest bloggers have e-mailed to tell us that they clicked on their own ads by accident. Your honesty is appreciated, and we would like to thank you for that.

You may have noticed that recently we went from beta 1.5 to beta 1.75. This is largely in part due to an advanced click fraud detection system, now in its 6th iteration with over 34 detection algorithms. Personally, the team at Advertlets does not like to terminate or freeze accounts, especially blogs that we enjoy reading or even people we have personally invited to join the network. However, for the good of the network, we have to and we will if needed.

We would like to say: Play nice, don’t be evil, and assume we know what you’re doing, because we do.

Its generally accepted that blogging is one of the most free, honest forms of expression available today. Apply the same philosophy to earning through your blog, and you can’t go wrong. Thank you.

Update: The blogosphere responds (relevant points highlighted) -

Lilian: Click Fraud Case In Local Malaysian Ads “…to track click frauds and give advertisers the confidence that they are paying for value clicks. This way, it will ensure the growth of the local ads industry and benefits us bloggers.
Sometimes, it is good to look at the big picture and play our parts in encouraging online advertisements. How bright the future is, depends on us bloggers.”

Wayne : Don’t Click On Your Own Ads“I personally think that clicking our own ads is an act of selfishness and stupidity because you cannot underestimate the technology that advertising platforms use nowadays to prevent click fraud. Apart from that, the expansion of blog advertising network will get throttled as advertisers will end up paying more than the results that they get. With this happening, they will rank online blog advertisements as their last resort to gain exposure and we bloggers will end up earning “wind”…”You may get the ego of earning real fast money with fraudulent clickings which after that, you can boast to your friends about the stats but I can tell you, the notification of you getting banned will be a stunning one.”

Freethinker: Click Fraud & and Unexpected Ally“Before CPC, some were strong supporters that honestly is in the hearts of everyone, some claim beyond the extend that it was insulting their integrity on thinking such low class acts could be reproduced…Both needed the bloggers and bloggers want the money through them ( and gatherings ). One can’t exactly achieve the mentioned items without the other.”