Paid Search Results Rife With Spyware

Miscellaneous

from the how-do-I-get-rid-of-this dept

Click fraud is a growing problem for paid-search providers, but they’re also faced with growing consumer resentment over the number of listings that lead to malware. While companies like Google and Microsoft are vocal in their distaste for spyware, some people feel they’re paying little more than lip service. The original article points out that Microsoft even went so far as to sue one alleged spyware maker over its business practices, but continued to return its advertisements on the MSN web site. It also reports that users in the Google Group for the anti-“badware” initiative it’s supporting are raising questions about some of the contextual ads on the group’s pages. Like advertisers suing Google for click fraud, critics allege the company has no motivation to stop the practice, since it profits from it. On their own, these issues may not be huge. But when they’re taken into account alongside other bouts of bad publicity, they could become a tipping point for the likes of Google.