Mission Creek

from wired.com

Here is an excellent summary of the difficulties Google faces, and insight into some actions. As the internet marketing model moves more mainstream, the technics will become increasingly complex, and most likely, Google will continue to expend an increasing amount of resources to counter their effects. If there ever is the perception that the click advertising model is ripe with fraud, then Google and its revenue stream could come crashing down very quickly. Their reputation, effectiveness, and future promise are the basis for the share value, loose any of those items and the perceived value in the market place will drop like a stone.

Google’s $6 billion-a-year advertising business is at risk because it can’t be sure that anyone is looking at its ads. The problem is called click fraud, and it comes in two basic flavors.

With network click fraud, you host Google AdSense advertisements on your own website. Google pays you every time someone clicks on its ad on your site. It’s fraud if you sit at the computer and repeatedly click on the ad or — better yet — write a computer program that repeatedly clicks on the ad. That kind of fraud is easy for Google to spot, so the clever network click fraudsters simulate different IP addresses, or install Trojan horses on other people’s computers to generate the fake clicks.

full story here

from usatoday.com

Here is another story about a new twist on ‘phising.’

BOSTON — Internet con artists are turning to an old tool — the phone — to keep tricking Web users who have learned not to click on links in unsolicited e-mails.

A batch of e-mails recently making the rounds were crafted to appear as if they came from PayPal, eBay’s online payment service. Like traditional phony “phishing” e-mails, these said there was some problem with the recipients’ accounts.

Phishing e-mails generally instruct recipients to click a link in the e-mail to confirm their personal information; the link actually connects to a bogus site where the data are stolen.

But with Internet users wiser about phishing, the new fake PayPal e-mail included no such link. Instead it told users to call a number, where an automated answering service asked for account information.

Security experts tracking this scam and other instances of “vishing” — short for “voice phishing” — say the frauds are particularly nefarious because they mimic the legitimate ways people interact with financial institutions.

full story here

Silicon Beat (San Jose Merc News Blog) reports that this offer was untrue, but the language makes me believe there was some sort of offer on the table at some point.

blog post here

Here is Fred Wilson, a NYC VC comments on the fact that some VCs may be charging their portfolio companies fees. I can’t imagine that this was a legitimate firm.

blog post here

For a while there has been a great deal of bad press about Friendster, on how it missed the boat, how allegedly the VC responsible for managing Friendster at Kleiner Perkins was asked to leave because of his role in the oversight of the Company. (though these rumors have never been confirmed) Now it appears that the value in Friendster may be greater than it social networking participation, Friendester has acquired a Patent on a form of social networking, specifically “A System, Method and Apparatus for Connecting Users in an Online Computer System Based on Their Relationships within Social Networks.” Maybe there is some sense in the continued funding of this failed social networking pioneer.

SAN FRANCISCO, California, July 7, 2006 – Friendster, an online community that connects people through
networks of friends, announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded a new U.S. Patent titled “A System, Method and Apparatus for Connecting Users in an Online Computer System Based on Their Relationships within Social Networks” (Number 7,069,308). The patent, which was awarded to Friendster and lists Jonathan Abrams as the inventor, outlines a system, method and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks.
The patent’s claims cover the unique system for calculating, displaying and acting upon relationships in a social
network. This invention led to the emergence of widely adopted online social networking systems.
“This patent is the first of many expected to be awarded to Friendster over the next several years and underscores the company’s ongoing commitment to innovation in social networking,” said Kent Lindstrom, president of Friendster.

full release here (.pdf)

from cnet.com

This is an area where a great deal of people are making a great deal of money and there is wide support and usage. I wonder if there will be any backlash to such a prohibition.

update The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to restrict Internet gambling, a move Republicans hope will boost their popularity before the November election.

By a vote of 317 to 93, politicians approved a controversial bill that tries to eliminate many forms of online gambling by targeting Internet service providers and financial intermediaries, namely banks and credit card companies that process payments to offshore Web sites.

full story here

from the mercurynews.com

I think this is an interesting take on the future of one of the most well know Internet properties that has yet to monetize.

Every day, more than 80 million videos are viewed on YouTube, the Internet’s latest instant phenomenon that is an online diary for the digital generation.

That’s some 2.4 billion clicked-on videos every month — postings that range from a teenager bemoaning her parents who won’t let her go hiking with her boyfriend to U.S. soldiers capturing scenes of combat in Iraq.

But can YouTube make money from these millions of mouse clicks? Is there a business plan that ensures the 1 1/2-year-old San Mateo start-up is not just another Silicon Valley one-click wonder?

The answer is critical to numerous start-ups jostling to position themselves at this new Internet intersection of social networking and entertainment driven by the ever-changing online behavior of young people.

Those that survive will have to find the right balance between the free expression of users, prevention of the illegal proliferation of copyrighted content and appeal to advertisers — while not alienating users like Allen Jiang, who can vaporize in an Internet minute.

Despite becoming a cultural force, the young company is just beginning to unveil a strategy to make money off a growing audience accustomed to getting what it wants online for free. That’s why subscriptions, pay-per-view videos or pay-to-upload videos are not part of YouTube’s business plan.

But advertising? It’ll have to be done just right.

full story here

I wonder why this sentencing is so extreme?

A federal appeals court upheld a nine-year prison term Monday for a hacker who tried and failed to steal customer credit-card numbers from the Lowe’s chain of home improvement stores.

Brian Salcedo, now 23, has been in custody since 2003, when an FBI stakeout caught him and a partner breaking into several Lowe’s networks over an unsecured Wi-Fi connection at a suburban Detroit store.

Under Monday’s ruling, Salcedo will not be eligible for release until May 2011.

Assistant U.S. attorney Matthew Martens, who prosecuted the case, said the sentence is long, but appropriate. “I hope it achieves, not only justice in this case, but deterrence to other people thinking about doing something similar,” Martens said.

Salcedo’s partner in the abortive caper, 22-year-old Adam Botbyl, has less than two months left on a sentence of 26 months for his role in the plot. After serving most of that time in custody, Botbyl is now in a halfway house in Detroit.

full story here

from techcrunch.com

I honestly dont know if this is a good or bad sign that $550m is not sufficent for a social networking site. They are only 1/10 the size of Myspace based onpage views. Then again, I think $1B for Facebook was more than generous.

Summary here

from infoworld.com

No matter how far technology may move forward, sometimes the oldest scams seem to find ways to co-op them. Phishing is a well know online scamming technique. Most users have become aware not to click on hyperlinks in unsolicited e-mail, or trust such content as authentic. Companies such as Passmark Security (recently acquired by RSA Security) have developed methods to help individuals protect against such scams. But now this Phishing scam has moved to telephone, thanks to VOIP technology, I wonder if someone will build a business model around countering this new threat.

A new kind of identity theft scam, with thieves using easy-to-obtain VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) telephone numbers to trick Internet or telephone users, is beginning to pop up, said a cybersecurity vendor.

Related to phishing scams, the new scheme uses cheaply obtained VOIP numbers as bogus credit card or financial services telephone numbers…

In phishing scams, identity thieves send e-mail that looks like it comes from a bank, credit card company or online payment service such as PayPal. The e-mail typically says the recipient’s account has been compromised in some way, and it contains a link to an official-looking Web site where the recipient can enter account information.

In the new scam, …identity thieves ask potential victims to call a phone number attached to a VOIP account, easily obtained online through services such as Skype or through retailers reselling VOIP products such as Vonage Holdings Corp…

full story here