Case 1: 08-CV-03139-RRM-RER Document 51-6 Filed 03/17/10 Page 16 of 47 When evaluating validity of a click, it is necessary to understand the intent of clicking on the ad by the user and to determine if there is any possibility of conversion or the intent is only to generate a charge for the click on the ads placed on that publisher's web site( Google explicitly prohibits this type of activity in the Terms and Conditions statement for the publishers when hey sign with Google's AdSense program) These definitions point to the problems associated with the whole effort of identifying nvalid clicks. First of all. to determine if a certain click is invalid. it is neces understand the intent of generating the click: was the click generated"artificially (improperly) or not and what does exactly"artificial" mean in this case. In certain cases the intent can clearly be determined. Positive intent can clearly be determined in such cases as when the click is eventually converted into a purchase of the advertised product or into another conversion event. Some of the negative intents can also be clearly determined. For example, Google lists several"prohibited means"(such as the ones stated AdSense Program Policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?sourceid=asos&subid=ww-ww-et- HC entry&medium=link) and also discussed on the AdSense page"What can I do to ensure that account disabled (https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer23921&ctx=sibling)) Any click generated using these"prohibited means"is, by definition, invalid, and some of them can be detected with near-100%certainty. For example, clicks using certain types of software bots or clicks on Google's ads on the publisher's own web site constitute examples of such"prohibited means " and can be detected using technological means and marked as“ invalid” Unfortunately, in several cases it is hard or even impossible to determine the true intent of a click using any technological means. For example, a person might have clicked on an ad looked at it. went somewhere else but then decided to have another look at the ad shortly thereafter to make sure that he/she got all the necessary information from the ad Is this second click invalid? To make things even more complicated, the second click may not be strictly necessary since the person remembers the content of the ad reasonably well (hence there is no real need for the second click). However, the person may not really like or care about the advertiser and decides to make this second click any way(to make sure that he/she did not miss anything in the ad and his/her information is indeed correct)without any concerns that the advertiser may end up paying for this second click (since the person really does not care about the advertiser and his/her own interests of not missing anything in the ad overweigh the concerns of hurting the advertiser). Therefore in some cases the true intent of a click can be identified only after examining deep psychological processes, subtle nuances of human behavior and other considerations in the mind of the clicking person. Moreover, to mark such clicks as valid or invalid, these deep psychological processes and subtle nuances of human behavior need to be operationalized and identified through various technological means, including software filters. Therefore, it is simply impossible to identify true clicking intent for certain types of clicking activities and, therefore, classify these clicks as valid or invalid 16
16 • When evaluating validity of a click, it is necessary to understand the intent of clicking on the ad by the user and to determine if there is any possibility of conversion or the intent is only to generate a charge for the click. • Existence of prohibited means, such as deceptive software or a publisher clicking on the ads placed on that publisher’s web site (Google explicitly prohibits this type of activity in the Terms and Conditions statement for the publishers when they sign with Google’s AdSense program). These definitions point to the problems associated with the whole effort of identifying invalid clicks. First of all, to determine if a certain click is invalid, it is necessary to understand the intent of generating the click: was the click generated “artificially” (improperly) or not and what does exactly “artificial” mean in this case. In certain cases the intent can clearly be determined. Positive intent can clearly be determined in such cases as when the click is eventually converted into a purchase of the advertised product or into another conversion event. Some of the negative intents can also be clearly determined. For example, Google lists several “prohibited means” (such as the ones stated in the AdSense Program Policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?sourceid=asos&subid=ww-ww-etHC_entry&medium=link) and also discussed on the AdSense page “What can I do to ensure that my account won’t be disabled” (https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23921&ctx=sibling)). Any click generated using these “prohibited means” is, by definition, invalid, and some of them can be detected with near-100% certainty. For example, clicks using certain types of software bots or clicks on Google’s ads on the publisher’s own web site constitute examples of such “prohibited means” and can be detected using technological means and marked as “invalid”. Unfortunately, in several cases it is hard or even impossible to determine the true intent of a click using any technological means. For example, a person might have clicked on an ad, looked at it, went somewhere else but then decided to have another look at the ad shortly thereafter to make sure that he/she got all the necessary information from the ad. Is this second click invalid? To make things even more complicated, the second click may not be strictly necessary since the person remembers the content of the ad reasonably well (hence there is no real need for the second click). However, the person may not really like or care about the advertiser and decides to make this second click anyway (to make sure that he/she did not miss anything in the ad and his/her information is indeed correct) without any concerns that the advertiser may end up paying for this second click (since the person really does not care about the advertiser and his/her own interests of not missing anything in the ad overweigh the concerns of hurting the advertiser). Therefore, in some cases the true intent of a click can be identified only after examining deep psychological processes, subtle nuances of human behavior and other considerations in the mind of the clicking person. Moreover, to mark such clicks as valid or invalid, these deep psychological processes and subtle nuances of human behavior need to be operationalized and identified through various technological means, including software filters. Therefore, it is simply impossible to identify true clicking intent for certain types of clicking activities and, therefore, classify these clicks as valid or invalid. Case 1:08-cv-03139-RRM -RER Document 51-6 Filed 03/17/10 Page 16 of 47
Case 1: 08-CV-03139-RRM-RER Document 51-6 Filed 03/17/10 Page 17 of 47 Furthermore, whether a particular click is valid or invalid sometimes depends on the parameters of the click. For example, consider the case of a doubleclick, i. e,, two clicks on the same ad impression, where the second click follows the first one within time period p. Is the second click in a doubleclick, valid or invalid? The answer depends the time difference p between two clicks. If p is"relatively large, "e.g., 10 seconds, then the second click on the same impression can be valid because the visitor may click on an impression, click on the back button of the browser and come back to the same ad and wanted to h other look at the ad(for example, doing comparison shopping). However, as will be argued below, if p is really small, e.g. 74 of a second then this click can be defined as invalid(again, based on the nuances of the definition of"invalid clicks"to be discussed below ) This puts us in a very uncomfortable situation of defining validity of a click based on specific values of its parameters. For define the second click as invalid, e. g. should it be 0.5 second, I second, 1. 1 seconds? o example, what should the delineating value of parameter p be in the above example to In summary, between the obviously clear cases of valid and invalid clicks, lies the whole spectrum of highly complicated cases when the clicking intent is far from clear and depends on a whole range of complicated factors, including the parameter values of the click. Therefore, this intent (and thus the validity of a click based on the above definitions)cannot be operationalized and detected by technological means with any reasonable measure of certainty All the definitions of invalid clicks presented above allude to the malicious intent to the advertiser pay for the click, and the absence or presence of this malicious differentiates fraudulent from invalid clicks. If the clicks are generated"artificially"with no possibility of conversion and only with the result of generating a charge for the click, then these clicks are invalid. If in addition to this there is also a malicious intent to hurt an advertiser or another stakeholder these clicks are fraudulent. note that invalid clicks "is a strictly more general concept thenfraudulent"clicks because(a) the latter are invalid clicks made with a malicious intent, (b) there exist inadvertent clicking activities with no possibility of conversion that do not have a malicious intent. Al example of an invalid click that is not fraudulent is the second immediate click in doubleclick made by a person out of an old habit(e. g. he/she may usually doubleclick all the applications, including Word, Excel and Web applications, since older versions of Windows required doubleclicks in many cases). Since this second click is made only out of an old habit it is inadvertent and does not have intent to hurt the advertiser. moreover it is invalid because it does not increase the probability of a conversion: if time between two clicks on the same ad impression is too short, the visitor cannot change his or her mind whether to convert within this short time period or not. Therefore, this click invalid but not fraudulent. Because the concept of an invalid click is broader than that of a fraudulent click, Google prefers to use the term invalid clicks or spam clicks These discussions have the following consequences: all the three definitions above including two google's definitions
17 Furthermore, whether a particular click is valid or invalid sometimes depends on the parameters of the click. For example, consider the case of a doubleclick, i.e., two clicks on the same ad impression, where the second click follows the first one within time period p. Is the second click in a doubleclick, valid or invalid? The answer depends on the time difference p between two clicks. If p is “relatively large,” e.g., 10 seconds, then the second click on the same impression can be valid because the visitor may click on an impression, click on the Back button of the browser and come back to the same ad impression again and wanted to have another look at the ad (for example, doing comparison shopping). However, as will be argued below, if p is really small, e.g. ¼ of a second, then this click can be defined as invalid (again, based on the nuances of the definition of “invalid clicks” to be discussed below). This puts us in a very uncomfortable situation of defining validity of a click based on specific values of its parameters. For example, what should the delineating value of parameter p be in the above example to define the second click as invalid, e.g. should it be 0.5 second, 1 second, 1.1 seconds? In summary, between the obviously clear cases of valid and invalid clicks, lies the whole spectrum of highly complicated cases when the clicking intent is far from clear and depends on a whole range of complicated factors, including the parameter values of the click. Therefore, this intent (and thus the validity of a click based on the above definitions) cannot be operationalized and detected by technological means with any reasonable measure of certainty. All the definitions of invalid clicks presented above allude to the malicious intent to make the advertiser pay for the click, and the absence or presence of this malicious intent differentiates fraudulent from invalid clicks. If the clicks are generated “artificially” with no possibility of conversion and only with the result of generating a charge for the click, then these clicks are invalid. If, in addition to this, there is also a malicious intent to hurt an advertiser or another stakeholder, these clicks are fraudulent. Note that “invalid clicks” is a strictly more general concept then “fraudulent” clicks because (a) the latter are invalid clicks made with a malicious intent, (b) there exist inadvertent clicking activities with no possibility of conversion that do not have a malicious intent. An example of an invalid click that is not fraudulent is the second immediate click in a doubleclick made by a person out of an old habit (e.g., he/she may usually doubleclick on all the applications, including Word, Excel and Web applications, since older versions of Windows required doubleclicks in many cases). Since this second click is made only out of an old habit, it is inadvertent and does not have intent to hurt the advertiser. Moreover, it is invalid because it does not increase the probability of a conversion: if time between two clicks on the same ad impression is too short, the visitor cannot change his or her mind whether to convert within this short time period or not. Therefore, this click is invalid but not fraudulent. Because the concept of an invalid click is broader than that of a fraudulent click, Google prefers to use the term invalid clicks or spam clicks. These discussions have the following consequences: all the three definitions above, including two Google’s definitions, Case 1:08-cv-03139-RRM -RER Document 51-6 Filed 03/17/10 Page 17 of 47