Oct 2009
I was getting a lot of click fraud on my Yahoo search marketing. Clicks not from searches, but from all these “nonsense” names sites, like stopglorify.info, http://www.qualityconformist.com, etc.etc.

I researched logs and it shows redirects from this company QuantCast.com, a data-mining company.

The clicks I am receiving from these nonsense sites, are because quantcast.com set up all these “parked domain” mini-search engines that are ONLY linked to Adsense/yahoo sponsored search sites.

So I am getting clicks from these no-content sites, that are sites filled with nothing but adsense arbitrage sites, that are no content al all, just pages filled with 100% links to Adwords ads.

Nonsense names Examples:
~ http://www.qualityconformist.com
~ http://www.stopglorify.info
~ http://www.sephalo.com
~ http://www.marketplacegains.com

They have search bars, for you to search a kw, which then redirects to these adsense sites. So when you search for a keyword example: quit smoking, you notice a redirect to quantcast, then to the nonsense name (above) pages with 100% adsense links.

Now, the owners of these sites can go in, using these redirects, and self-click on my ads to make adsense revenue all day. I get charged .80 cents a click..all day. They put up zillions of these adsense sites in Keyword silos — like quit smoking — and bang us advertisers all day with these fake clicks. $16 to 20 bucks a day

(whois shows some sites are registered to ns1. parkingspa.com.)

I have had to stop advertising on Yahoo PPC.

Part II
Just yesterday, I recieved a notice of class action lawsuit, levied towards Yahoo for this parked domain click fraud stuff.

And what do you know? The guy at yahoo who was responsible for this click fraud stuff, Todd Teresi, was pushed out of yahoo.com is now a Chief revenue Officer at Quantcast!

I guess he is up to his old tricks that he used for click fraud at Yahoo.com, to rip us off at quantcast.com.

His work at Yahoo resulted in this
class action lawsuit here: http://www.inreyahoosettlement.com

The management team of Quantcast includes alumnus from Fortent, Orbital Data and Transium, some serious research companies. A “Who’s who” of cyber criminals

What resource can we use to protect ourselves against these determined sophisticated data miners who have created an embedded click-fraud empire?

Hiring paid “clickers” to use Quantcasts mini “search engines” (to conceal their path from a Quantcast redirect property), so they can click on pricey adsense/Adwords is criminal to me. Your thoughts?