Researchers at security firm Finjan said on Wednesday that they have uncovered an underground botnet-leasing network where cyber criminals can pay $5 to $100 to install malware on 1,000 PCs for things like stealing data and sending spam.  CNET – Golden Cash’ botnet-leasing network uncovered

If these computers are able to steal personal data or send spam email, they can abuse PPC.  This is not an isolated case.  On April 21, 2009, another zombie network was found with 1.9 machines infected.  Another such network, Donbot is responsible for 18.2% of email spam.  

According to the messaging security company, the biggest botnet currently is Cutwail, which has doubled in size and output per bot since March. At its peak, Cutwail had an army of 1.5 million to 2 million active bots CNET – Botnets lead the way for spam

In Anatomy of a Fraudster, a report from Anchor Intelligence, a growing bot net was found in 2006.  In a month’s time, Clickbot.A had grown to 100,o00 bots.  It used a low noise click fraud attack.  Each bot was instructed to click once every fifteen minutes.  That means each bot would click 96 times a day.  If the bot herder received only 10 cents per click, they would make $960,000 per day with 100,000 bots. Google has claimed since late ‘06 that click fraud was under 2%.  Shuman Ghosemajumder said in an email exchange that he felt “rule based pattern recognition” and “statistical anomaly detection” still work.  With the sheer number of zombies now available, how can he be sure?

By leasing zombie networks, criminals can abuse the PPC networks for millions of dollars per day.  To make this even more tempting, the chances of getting caught are near zero.  The chance of getting charged, even smaller.  Google, Yahoo and Microsoft as well as other PPC providers have very little interest in stopping these networks.  It’s how they get paid.  We should all remember that Adwords is Google’s golden goose.  It brought in 30% of gross revenue or 1.69 billion 4th quarter 2008 on partner sites, sites that could use this system. 

Another 67% of gross revenue or 3.81 million 4th quarter 2008 came from Google sites.  These clicks seem to be clean because  they come from Google controlled sites.  With a 18% gain over 4th quarter 2007, I have to start wondering.  We have seen massive fraud in recent years.  Enron and Bernie Madoff are sobering examples of how fraudulent behaviour can go undetected for years.  I am not accussing Google of any wrong doing.  That said, the fact still remains that only Google can detect these networks. 

If you allow the fox to guard the hen house, don’t be surprised when the hens go missing.

Burnham’s Beat - Bill has a very lite posting schedule.  That is the only drawback to this blog.  He is well informed and offers a unique look at business.

John Battelle - John is a published author.  He is also an avid music lover.  His blog is sprinkled with personal developments and search engine news.  His yearly predictions are usually very close. 

Laserlike - A contributer on the GigaOM blog.  These are posts from a VC’s point of view.  I just subscribed to his blog and appreciate his writing style.

 Out of my Gord - Interesting blog posts on a lite posting schedule.

Buzfactor - A brand new blog.  I read a guest post and had to subscribe.

Marketing Pilgrim - Andy Beal is the reputation management expert.  He has a team of writers who report on internet developments and announcements.  A good place to start if keeping up with the major internet news is a priority.

GigaOM – A former writer of the now defunct Business 2.0 magazine. (I loved that mag!)  He and his team focus on general internet news and innovations.  Good, in depth articles are the main stay of this blog.

Search Engine Land - Danny Sullivan heads this blog.  He has been the “go to” guy in search for well over 10 years.  His opinion carries big weight in the community.  The blog is a great summary service of what’s going on out there.

Search Engine Watch - Danny’s old blog.  This blog was once the place to go if you needed to know.  Since then, it’s a shadow of it’s former self.  Good thing you get an interesting post now and then.

Traffick - Andrew is Canadian and a PPC expert.  He is a published author and has a light posting schedule.  The posts are well thought out, with a unique Canadian point of view.  I subscribed to his blog after a heated discussion on PPC click fraud rates.

Search Engine Journal - This blog has some interesting SEO specific posts.  They do a good job keeping you informed of general SEO and SEM practices.

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog – This blog is an in depth look at the industry.  If you were to follow one SEO blog, make it this one.  Rand has some great cutting edge articles.  SEOmoz also has a large paid membership.  They also have many SEO tools that may be of benefit.

Screenwerk - Greg has the inside track on new local search development.  His continued philosophy that “everything is local” needs strong consideration. 

Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search - Mike seems to be the only support you can find for Google Maps.  Unfortunately for Mike, he’s not on Google’s payroll.  His blog gives you a better understanding of Google Maps.

Yahoo Feeds - I subscribe to Yahoo Feeds with the keywords “yellow pages” and “local search”.  You get a little bit of noise but it’s worth the effort.  I also use this service for reputation management.

I followed up that PPC article with another related post the 12 Ways of Click Fraud  These were points I created to help people realize the depth of click fraud.  The post was inspired by Google’s claim that click fraud is only 2%.  You can find some other articles related to click fraud on Andy’s site.  Just do a search for “zombie” for a good list. 

I also published an open letter of sorts.  It calls for the major internet players to eliminate email SPAM.  Email SPAM accounts for over 95% of email traffic on the web.  The elimination or reduction of this useless traffic should be high priority.  Google has recently started a “make the web faster” program.  Again, they should start with useless bandwidth waste instead of targeting web site owners for quicker downloads. 

I continue to subscribe to the Marketing Pilgrim blog and am a semi-frequent commenter.

Much has changed on the internet over the last 8 years.  Google has evolved from start-up to become the most recognized brand on the planet.  Social media sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have become mainstay internet applications.  Real time search is early stage but is starting to take form.  Many companies,  including Google, are trying to capitalize on the enormous value of user content.  Events like the Hudson River plane crash and Michael Jackson’s death have exposed the need for this newly developing sector. 

Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Local search is one of those areas.  Up until 2004, the major search engines had very little interest in local search.  Google bought Keyhole and intergrated it into their current product, Google Maps.  When looking from the outside, local search looks much improved over the original Yellow Page sites.  When I see local search today, I call it “local directory”.  These companies are only allowing you to search for a company or a category.  True local search should give you search engine results just like Google.  It should allow you to choose an area, category and keywords to produce search engine listings.  It should look like the local search system I have created.

I would like to invite you to see what real local search looks like.  I have created a test market site so you can test out this new innovation.  Please keep in mind that it has limited data until later this year (2009).