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(Fayetteville, NC) Web Hosting Company (AIT) www.AIT.com home to over 210,000websites accused the Fayetteville Observer, http://fayobserver.com or theFayetteville Publishing Company (FPC), of committing online Click Fraud against itslocal and national advertisers. The paper, AIT alleges, is part of an ever growingsyndication of click affiliated sites receiving revenue generated from Click Fraud. We have seen all kinds of techniques for committing Click Fraud, said ClarenceBriggs, AIT CEO and former U.S. Army Infantry Officer.  We have seen softwareprograms that automate the process of Click Fraud. Then there is the manual fraudwhere people click on online ads over and over with no intent of buying anything butjust to get paid a percentage of each click  pay to surf and click. Lately, we haveseen click BOT armies doing it. AIT is the company that charged Google with clickfraud and led the class action lawsuit against the search engine last year. AIT alsoworked with the FBI on the matter and started the Click Fraud portalwww.igeryon.com.  Ironically, Google and other search engines might be the victim inthis instance, said Briggs.
Briggs has labeled the most recent Click Fraud as the  Bang Box scheme.  It isingenious, said Briggs. He describes a situation where a publisher like a localnewspaper hosts it web servers in a data center with an ISP. The newspaper orpublisher then gets fed advertiser ads from the search engines, syndicates and otherIAB members to its web site. Then they hire a third party to rent a web serverinside the ISPÂ's data center in order to click on the ads without generatingsuspicious external traffic. They are paid for the clicks by the search engines. AITlike many other local and national advertisers had placed a significant amount ofonline advertising on the Fayetteville ObserverÂ's web site. AIT is also thetechnology company which provided co-location for the ObserverÂ's web servers in theAIT data center. When AIT grew suspicious that it was being over-billed foradvertising, AIT as a web-host was able to monitor web traffic to and from theObserverÂ's web site asserted Michael Roberts, the CIO of AIT. According to Roberts, AIT determined that up to 50% or more of the online impressions and ad clicks forwhich the Observer charges AIT and other advertisers were artificially manufacturedor inflated. Roberts claimed AIT was able to gauge traffic to and from thenewspaperÂ's website which far below the statistics the Observer used to attractadvertisers in its online policies and agreements. Charles Broadwell, the Publisherof FPC, could not be reached for comment
 The FPC rate card and other representations made by the Observer claimed they got17,000 visitors a day to their website , said Briggs,  This is simply not true. Werecorded and documented a few genuine visits a day, but the majority of visits weremanufactured by the Bang Box. We wanted to open and examine the ObserverÂ's webservers in front of everyone and the court to get at the truth and prove the fraudbut they did not want to do so. Briggs says that AIT has compiled a list of bothnational and local advertisers who could be victims of the FPC click fraud. Heindicates that they will contact the possible victims to let them know that theyhave hard evidence of the wrongdoing committed against them. Briggs also says hewill contact the search engine syndicates and send them the evidence he hasregarding FPC. "It just may be possible that this sort of thing is widespread -publishers inflating traffic without the search engines knowing about it." Briggswill be the keynote speaker at ISPCON this yearwww.ispcon.com/conference /keynotes.php. ISPCON is the capstone event for theInternet industry and Briggs says he intends to use the FPC experience to expose theanatomy of click fraud from the search engines and syndicates down to localpublishers.  We are going to put the entire lawsuit and discovery online, saidBriggs.  Folks have a right to know the truth.Â
Recently, AIT certified its network as  clean of crimeware and malware with PandaSoftwareÂ's Malware Radar. Panda Software www.pandasoftware.com discovered themalicious  Clickbot.A and is a pioneer in the industry combating malware, Trojansand viruses.  Many ISPs inadvertently allow malware to be used by their networks tocommit illegal or unethical acts , says Ryan Sherstobitoff, Product TechnologyOfficer for Panda in the U.S.  Malware Radar is a product we developed to assistISPs to combat the problems and prevent their network resources from being abused. AIT and Panda have partnered and are working with the FBI to identify and stopMalware. We intend to use all the data and evidence from surrounding this Bang Boxscam to educate the public about click fraud. We actually have film footage in realtime that we can release showing the generation of false traffic. Briggs says thatbased on the circumstances of this Click Fraud scheme, no one has ever had thislevel of evidence. For more details visit www.igeryon.com.
A Staff Report
