Media News

There's a new blog, called Regret The Error, dedicated to documenting corrections, retractions, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in North American media. For any regular reader of the news, this blog is engaging and informative. It provides a central clearinghouse which demonstrates that most media corrections are the literary equivalent of sweeping the dirt under the carpet. (via mediabistro.com)

In an article about Internet fraud, Adam Penenberg discusses an area of increasing concern - click fraud. Click fraud is the practice of adulterating pay-per-click advertising statistics by generating illegitimate hits.

Click fraud takes advantage of the increasing popularity of performance-based ad arrangements on the net, and the dramatic rise in the cost of online advertising. Those that stand to benefit most are search networks' content partners, which receive commissions on these fraudulent clicks, and competitors intent on playing dirty by inflating a rival's pay-per-click spending to stretch their advertising budget.

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Click fraud can be carried out in several ways. The simplest: Hire a legion of low-wage workers to click manually on web ads. For instance, The Times of India reported on a new type of gray-market outsourcing: A growing number of Indian housewives, urban professionals and college grads are hired to sit around and click on ads for hours on end. They make between 18 and 25 cents per click and earn up to $200 a month.

Since click fraud affects the integrity of the Internet in addition to increasing the cost of conducting online business, the FCC should investigate and take appropriate action. The article also addresses other types of Internet fraud and it's worth a look. (via Wired News)