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Harvard professor accuses Google of ad fraud
Turning free traffic into paid traffic
Benjamin Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, is boldly accusing Google of defrauding its advertisers.
In a report, Edelman says Google and its partners are systematically inflating advertisers' conversion rates by interceding in transactions advertisers would otherwise have received for free. In layman terms, it's charging them for thin air.
He claims the fraud overstates the true effectiveness of Google ads, and leads to overcharging. Edelman also points out Google's Chrome browser is designed to encourage users to search, rather than navigate directly, thus yielding more ad-clicks and revenue for Google. Although other browsers behave in a similar fashion, Chrome is more aggressive.
Google has not commented the allegations.
More here.