Click on this

It was another day in class and Uncle Rick was bemoaning the University Daily Kansan's loss of revenue.

Click ads may not be the savior of online news yet.
Photo: Steve Lynn

He reminisced about how he used to be a tough news boss who mercilessly fired managers who failed to ensure 30 percent profit margins. Now he's on the the Kansan board, so even if a student were responsible for the Kansan's decline, he couldn't fire him or her.

I thought he needed help, so that night, I clicked on a few ads beneath a couple Kansan articles. I quickly lost interest, but it felt good making the Kansan a few cents. Later, I realized I could have committed a crime: click fraud.

Fortunately, I don't do this for a living. But thousands of others do, according to the Washington Post. Some Web sites actually pay people to click on ads for hours at a time.

Sites that host the ads and companies who provide the service have benefited the most from click ads. The Economist credits innovations such as Google's AdSense with the "growth and revival" of online advertising.

But advertisers are crying foul. Advertisers have filed several class-action law suits against Google and Yahoo. Google says that click fraud accounts for less than 10 percent of its AdSense hits. But click fraud couild become a bigger problem if advertisers lose confidence, the article says.

Will models such as AdSense fund the news of the future? It's possible if Google and Yahoo work out the kinks.

On second thought, maybe news outlets should join this organization.