Pretty much the usual coverage on click fraud from the Washington Post, including some good quotes from click fraud maven Jessie Strichiola. The fun part of this article is the battling product managers. Compare:

"If there is anybody who says this is not a real problem, they are kidding you," said John Slade, a product manager with Yahoo.

"I would characterize the problems due to click fraud as small. We have a software system that filters out fraudulent clicks even before advertisers get billed for them," said Salar Kamangar, a Google product manager. ... "This is not a significant problem..."

At least one product manager is past the denial stage. The Post article also mentions cost-per-acquisition as a potential solution.

Update:SEW contrasts the quotes a bit differently, pulling the old quote from Google's CFO. I think he's the only one at Google who's been forthright about the potential of the problem - but then again, due to Sarbanes-Oxley, maybe he has to be. Also, Andrew Goodman responds to the WaPo article. He seems circumspect about the click fraud problem, and urges reporters to find a balanced view of the PPC world.

¶ 4/17/2005