Google has had to issue refunds to several hundreds of its advertisers, due to fake and invalid clicks from several websites running Google ads on their platform. While invalid clicks have always been a problem that ad agencies like Google face, the rate of invalid clicks detected by Google has soared in the second quarter of the year, the Wall street Journal reports. This may in part be because an online army of trolls have chosen invalid clicks as their preferred method of protesting what they deem as Google abusing its power.
In the past month, due to pressure from the media and advertisers over “hate speech” concerns, Google has mass-demonetized the YouTube videos of several right-leaning Vloggers whose videos express controversial views. Videos that criticize and discuss Islam, immigration, anti-feminism and a wide array of other topics no longer qualify to be monetized. This means the content creators will not earn any money when people view these videos. Some YouTubers have had up to 95% of their videos demonetized, thereby making their entire channel practically worthless …… 4chan is fighting back.
Using programs like AdNauseam and UBO, 4chan users are sending millions of fake clicks to Google’s advertisers. These programs are essentially bots that visit the websites of companies who are advertising their brands and products with Google through google’s affiliate links. The bots are designed to operate as humans beings behind computers and click on interesting ads provided by Google’s servers, except unlike real humans, these bots do not purchase anything from the advertisers’ websites or interact with them in any way (Imagine paying hundreds of dollars for advertisement and not getting anything from it).
Several threads have appeared on website like 4chan, 8chan and on some Reddit subs, encouraging users to download these programs and join in the fight:
From the wall street journal:
In the past few weeks, the Alphabet Inc. unit (Google’s parent company) has informed hundreds of marketers and ad agency partners about the issue with invalid traffic, known in the industry as “ad fraud.” The ads were bought using the company’s DoubleClick Bid Manager over the course of a few months this year, primarily in the second quarter.
Scott Spencer, director of product management for Google, acknowledged that refunds have been paid, but he declined to provide a dollar figure for the amount being returned. Some ad buyers said the refund amounts range from “less money than you would spend on a sandwich” to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
https://ageofshitlords.com/4chan-launched-war-google-currently-winning