Click Fraud Fodder

There've been a ton of solid click fraud stories published in major magazines and periodicals in recent days. While I continue to think that the very notion of click fraud is more worth our pity than our panic, I hope that these features help coalesce an industry approach to the topic that's not overly reactionary.

BusinessWeek's cover story is a good reintroduction to the issue. And the New York Times takes a just-as-incendiary look at the aspect of online advertising.

My concern is that these problems are easily solved -- technologically, if not culturally. Even though people will come up with workarounds as fast as we come up with solutions, how is this different than phishing and other things online marketers and communicators have encountered?

Yes, there's money at stake. Yes, measurement and accountability are important. But why hasn't this come up in regards to... say, traffic? Traffic used to be the linchpin of online performance.

Now, perhaps the ads are?