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India’s secret army of online ad ‘clickers’

asked 3 years ago
India’s secret army of online ad ‘clickers’

N VIDYASAGAR

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, MAY 03, 2004 08:20:34 AM ]

NEW DELHI: With her baby on her lap, Maya Sharma (name changed) gets down to work every evening from her eighth-floor flat at Vasant Vihar. Maya’s job is to click on online advertisements. She doesn’t care about the ads, but diligently keeps count — it’s $0.18 to $0.25 per click.

A growing number of housewives, college graduates, and even working professionals across metropolitan cities are rushing to click paid Internet ads to make $100 to $200 (up to Rs 9,000) per month.

“It’s boring, but it is extra money for a couple of hours of clicking weblinks every day,” says a resident of Delhi’s Patparganj, who has kept a $300-target for the summer.

Traffic to click overseas Internet ads — from home loans to insurance — is spreading fast in India. “I have no interest in what appears when clicking an ad. I care only whether to pause 60 seconds or 90 seconds, as money is credited if you stay online for a fixed time,” says another user.

Here’s how it works: online advertisers in developed markets agree to pay hosting website each time an ad is clicked. With performance-based deals becoming dominant on the Internet, intermediaries have sprung up to “do the needful”.’ Why, type in ‘earn rupees clicking ads’ in Google — you get 25,000 results.

“I’m not surprised. As competition intensifies, people are using every trick to increase their revenues,” says Sam Balsara, CMD, Madison.

The trend is catching up in India. Says Goutam Rakshit, chairman, Advertising Council of India: “It’s a numbers game as far as media buying is concerned. And anybody who can manipulate numbers gets the edge. This is unethical, and needs to be curbed.”

Take Click2freemoney.com. Calling itself an Internet advertising company that shares profits with members, it gives three options to earn money — by clicking on website links via e-mails that they send, by clicking on banners and text ads in their paid-to-click section, and by referring others to the website.

No wonder Internet ad firms have been floated in neighbourhood colonies, promising to share “secrets” to earning in dollars by clicking online ads for an upfront fee of Rs 250 to Rs 1,500.

Typically, online ad clickers get their money remitted by opening accounts through PayPal or StormPay — which enables money transaction if you have an e-mail address.

Most clickers, however, opt to pay commission to middle men and encash earnings in rupees. Clickers say they pay $7 commission for every $50 earned.

Clicks are bought to boost number of hits for web ads or online advertisers who are not tracking user location. Rakshit says new tech solutions are being developed to bring in some sort of accountability. “It is going to be a cat-and-mouse game,” he says.

Industry, as a whole, is confident that this is an interim trend that will fizzle out in the long run. But for the moment, there are countless Maya Sharmas clicking away

11 Answers
Dominique answered 3 years ago
Boy, that seems to be quite out of control!

antoine answered 3 years ago
I bet you anything that some of those clicks are for ah-ha and other garbage search engines.

It’s a very sad way of earning money, but I’ve seen people go to more extremes for less. I’ve known people to sit at the computer 2 – 3 hours a day clicking on epilot.com ads to earn 20 bucks a month. (back when epilot paid people to click on listings)

Antoine

emg35 answered 3 years ago
That is total shit. You would think they would know they are simply stealing money they get, but guess they don’t care :madat: :madat:

phpArt answered 3 years ago
The community you’re looking for is this one:

http://www.getpaidforum.com

I tried it for a few days, just to find out that it’s full of scams and people recruiting other people to work for them (a.k.a. downlines). It’s a jungle in which everyone struggles to screw the others. There’s also the culture of “being nice” by “doing a search” everytime a “search ad” is sent to them. Yes, people advertise their search portals in paid email, and most people just click on any result in the portal just to return the favor. That’s why most ppc search engines don’t work for advertisers. Anyway, it’s a funny place; it’s fun to read posts like “XXXXX program is a scam,” “my e-gold account was hacked,” “XXXXX program hasn’t paid me.” And this happens every single day.

Anonymous answered 3 years ago
If we were very organized, all casino affiliates could have an internal-network search engine on-site.

So, once a person found a site with a search, they can go from site to site on the network.

Do you get what I mean?

MarinersFan answered 3 years ago
That “get paid to surf the Web” biz has been around for years. Even the big guys like Overture get hit. The difference is Overture has IP tracking to minimize the fraud.

aleph answered 3 years ago
Quote


That “get paid to surf the Web” biz has been around for years



I miss the good old days of Alladvantage … man that

company had a crazy business plan … was fun while

it lasted … I had over a thousand affiliates under me.

<span title=” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />

Anonymous answered 3 years ago

If we were very organized, all casino affiliates could have an internal-network search engine on-site.

So, once a person found a site with a search, they can go from site to site on the network.

Do you get what I mean?

no, but I imagine if its your idea it ought to be good, explain further please?

Anonymous answered 3 years ago
Ok, you know how you can put a google search bar on site, as well as others.

What about a casino industry search bar…..
A huge project, cuz you’d want to keep the rift-raft out, and insure quality sites are included. Also huge because you need a good search engine program and someone has to run it, and that’s probably a whole lot bigger than I imagined when I thought of this idea.

Or a gamboogle.com search engine. <span title=” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />

I dont’ have time for anything new myself, I’m already doing my sites between diaper changes and during naps, among other comittments. I just come up with the ideas, but I can’t volunteer any time. lol

Probably the best description of this is a sort of site ring – but a large one, which powers it’s own internal search engine.

In a way, we already do this by exchanging links.

Anonymous answered 3 years ago
DIAPERS! Yikes!

my first wife after having left our home about 3 weeks- called one day and said to come over and get our 6 month old; so I did. I’d never changed a diaper or made a bottle in all my life ( our deal had been that I’d make the money and she’d take care of the kid).

I was a lot like the movie 3 men and a baby only I needed 2 more men. If my kid wasn’t such a good little guy he’d likely never have seen the age of 2, but he’d cry just enough to wake me up and then oh-so-patiently wait for me to get my shit together enough to make and warm his bottle.

The diapers were the worst; but I reached a point where I could do it with little problem …. and I thought it would be that way for life; but just recently I noticed (quickly) that I really, really, really don’t like the smell of dirty diapers; and looking back wonder how the hell I ever did it.

So hat’s-off to ya Mom. …. and could you move the dirty diaper bag down towards the Prof’s end of the forum. He’s had more experience with that sort of thing.

I should have added that it wasn’t just a visit but rather I took care of the baby for the next couple of years, his mom finally got her shit together, I think she had post-depression going on, but back then there wasn’t a name for it.