Nerve Endings Firing Away

Did the Indian tech magazine, Digit just get egg all over its face? Valleywag reported that Digit is running a cover story this month on Google Adsense’s click-fraud vulnerability. Now those with Adsense accounts and any experience of mischief or even plain misunderstanding know very well that Google takes utmost care in avoiding click fraud. It is also merciless in canceling your account even if it gets a hint of click fraud. This strategy undoubtedly has rubbed some publishers the wrong way but overall, it has strengthened Google’s image regarding tackling any kind of click fraud and their algorithms in detecting any mischief have reaching artificial-intelligence-type proportions.

So what is the basis of Digit’s decision to run this old story? Well, it seems a security analyst Manish Arora wrote a script to stimulate human behavior and game Google’s click-fraud detection algorithms. Now I’m sure you think Arora’s script worked and you also want a piece of that hack. But sorry to disappoint you, even Digit’s story tells us that the script didn’t work and Google promptly terminated Arora’s account regardless of the fact that according to him, he was doing so to test the vulnerability in their system. So why does Digit’s cover seem to suggest that Adsense has holes (complete with a graphic of the Google logo with a bullet hole)? Isn’t that merely misleading the public? Also, their website doesn’t seem to have the story online. Shame on you, Digit.