Archive for January 28th, 2008

Gaming EntreCard, Is It Click Fraud?

Monday, January 28th, 2008

I have been using a new blogging service called EntreCard recently and was disturbed to notice a nefarious use of the service in my web logs.

EntreCard for those who have not used the service is the equivalent of a blogging business card service. Users who visit your site and see the entrecard logo can drop their own card to notify you of their presence, people can also advertise on your site. It is a bit difficult to explain, but there is an excellent introductory video is available on the EntreCard home page.

As people drop card they build up credit point to spend on advertising on other sites, here is where the problem occurs, if someone can play the system and rack up a huge number of clicks, which can then be tranfered advertising, the credits can also be transfered to other users for cash. If there is money involved for clicking on links, people are going to invent ways to speed up the system. The service I noticed comes from the URL http://ec.createlf.com/

Using this system, a user can sequentiually browse through enrecards and drop their own. It is a very easy way to speed through a large number of sites. Add a clickbot and someone has a bag load of credits for very little effort.

At the top of the article I ask is this click fraud, the answer is probably no, the users are dropping their cards as the system allows, but in my opinion, they are working very close to the edge of the rules.

I have contacted EntreCard and asked about details of their invalid click filters, I will post details here when they get back to me.

As you can see EntreCard is not on my sidebar, another fine idea kicked into touch by the get rich quick squad.

UPDATE

EntreCard were very quick to answer my queries and said:

Greetings,

The application in question, which eases the use of Entrecard browsing is currently allowed, because it still requires actual people to visit the sites to drop their card. This allows the blogger to catch the attention of the visitor, and turn them into a regular reader. The use of any program or application which drops your card for you, however, is not allowed. Invalid clicks are defined by our network as any card drop that does not not come from visiting a members actual blog and dropping through that member’s widget by personally clicking the “drop yours” text.

We have gear in place to detect scripted dropping and drop bots, though we do not go into detail as to how it works. When a user is caught automating the dropping procedure in some way, they are penalized by being fined more credits than they earned. Repeat offenders are deleted out of the network.

In addition, in order to earn credits from dropping cards, you need to have an active widget on a quality blog. If you don’t have an active widget, you do not earn credits from dropping. If you do have an active widget, but your blog is spammy or of poor quality, it is deleted from the network and thus you cannot earn credits.

In addition, members can only earn 300 credits per day through drops. This limit is in place to prevent any attempt at a large-scale system abuse. It is currently less than the amount to advertise on the most expensive blogs for a single day.

Finally, our own internal accounting system allows us to track down the origin and destination of any credits being sent through the system. If we were to uncover any sort of credit ring or operation geared towards farming credits illegally to sell them, we would shut it down, track down all their credits, and remove them from the system. So, if you are attempting to buy credits from someone, make sure you know who they are, and where the credits came from, because if the credits are “dirty”, they will be deleted.

So using a program such as the one found at ec.createlf.com is allowed. However, if you attempt to automate the system by scripting the dropping process, we will catch you (as we have caught others), penalize you, and track down and delete any credits that you may have sent to any other accounts.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Tags:
Posted in News | 4 Comments »

How to stop click fraud

Monday, January 28th, 2008

This blog is all about the battle against click fraud and other low quality clicks, here are my top posts telling you how to stop click fraud.

They should act as an introduction to the subject of click fraud.

If you would like to keep up to date with developments in the click fraud arena, why not subscribe to this site for free via RSS or Email using the links at the top of this page.

Tags:
Posted in Features, How To | No Comments »