The latest estimate for click fraud indicates taht more than $1.3 billion of keyword advertising sales are fake, according to a study released yesterday from researchers Outsell (the full study is $495).

Highlights (as reported by SFgate July 5, 2006):

–  14.6% of clicks are fake.
– 75% of advertisers have been impacted at least once (One wonders if those who say they haven’t probably are simply unaware of it).
– Nearly a third of advertisers have reduced or stopped spending on click-based advertising. An additional 10% intend to curtail spending.

"Outsell’s survey was based on the responses of 407 online advertisers representing a cross-section of U.S. business. Their spending ranged from several thousand dollars online annually to more than $10 million". SFgate.

Outsell cleverly heralds their reports as the beginning of the "Don’t ask, don’t tell" era in keyword advertising.  Its clear this issue is going to be a major headache for the search engines.

Mortablog readers are reminded of our post "BlackFoot calls time out on click fraud."

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for that matter.  Just who owns them is kind of unclear really.  If you
do find someone who will own up to them for sure, let us know.