April 20, 2007 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Web hosting provider AIT (AIT.com) announced on Thursday that it has uncovered the latest form of click fraud, known as the ‘bang box’ scheme, inside its own data center.
Bang Box is a type of click fraud that occurs when a search engine affiliate hosts it Web servers in a data center with an ISP, and the affiliate is then forwarded advertiser ads from the search engines, syndicates and other IAB members to its Web site. The affiliates then hire a third party to rent a Web server inside the ISP’s data center in order to ‘bang’ or click on their affiliate site, driving impressions or clicking on the ads themselves using an internal IP address without generating suspicious external traffic.
The seach engine affiliates are paid for the clicks by the search engines who are often unaware of what is happening. AIT filed a lawsuit in Cumberland County, North Carolina alleging that the local Fayetteville Observer (fayobserver.com) owned by Fayetteville Publishing Company of committing online click fraud against its local and national advertisers using the bang box technique.
AIT provided colocation for the Observer’s web servers in the AIT data center. When AIT grew suspicious that it was being over-billed for advertising, it began monitoring web traffic to and from the Observer’s web site, says AIT CIO Michael Roberts. The company discovered that up to 50 percent or more of the online impressions and ad clicks that the Observer charges AIT and other advertisers were inflated due to an internal Web server that would repeatedly click on the Fayetteville Observer’s Web site.
“The FPC rate card and other representations made by the Observer claimed they got 17,000 visitors a day to their Web site,” says AIT CEO Clarence Briggs. “This is simply not true. We recorded and documented a few genuine visits a day but the majority of visits were manufactured by the bang box. It is a matter of public record – we wanted to open and examine the Observer’s Web servers in front of everyone and the court to get at the truth and prove the fraud but they did not want to do so.”
The company announced on Monday that it filed a lawsuit against Fayetteville Observer newspaper, accusing the publication of click fraud, unfair and deceptive trade practices and breach of contract.
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