Palo Alto based Anchor Intelligence, which was called FraudWall until last week, may be part of the long term solution to the click fraud problem that plagues the big cost-per-click advertising networks (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft in particular).

Click fraud has been around as long as CPC marketing was first introduced by GoTo in 1998 (GoTo renamed to Overture and was acquired by Yahoo in 2003 for $1.7 billion). Google and Yahoo generally avoid the subject, but some outsiders estimate that as many as 20 – 25% of clicks are fraudulent – by people either trying to drive up the advertising costs of competitors, or by clicking on the ads displayed on sites they control.

Much of this fraud is detected by the ad networks and removed. But some of it isn’t. And it’s clear that the ad networks have conflicting incentives. Fraud directly drives revenue. Fixing it increases credibility, which is an indirect benefit. But the conflict naturally leads people to assume that the ad networks don’t fight click fraud as hard as they could.

Frankly, it’s not appropriate for the ad networks to be completely trusted to solve the problem, since they have a financial incentive not to. That’s where Anchor Intelligence comes in.

They, like competitors Click Forensics and Authenticlick, will be a neutral third party that audits the ad networks and report on fraud. Not only are they conflict free, but the fact that they will see traffic and clicks from multiple networks gives them an advantage. More data should mean better results.

Anchor Intelligence founder Ken Miller says they are working with fifty or so partner ad networks and advertisers. And he says a new big ad network partner will be announced shortly. Miller won’t say how they price deals.

The company has had two rounds of financing – a $2 million Series A in January 2007 from a slew of angel investors (Ron Conway, Baseline Ventures, Rajeev Motwani, Ram Shriram, Peggy Taylor, Jeff Jordan and Mike Maples). They raised an additional $4 million in September 2007 from JK&B Capital and earlier investors.

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Well, I asked for negative Facebook speculation and rumors and, even though I was just kidding, a ton of stuff rolled in.

A new Facebook application called Bonfire is my favorite. The idea is that you can beat third parties who are inserting information about what you did on their sites into your news feed, to the punch.

So now you can insert a statement like “Mike bought Preparation H at Walgreens” directly into your news feed before Walgreens does it for you. It’s obviously a joke, but it’s also a fun way to insert a direct message into your news feed. Enjoy.

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The music of performer 50 Cent has zero appeal to me, but the man is undoubtedly smart, as the following words (via TorrentFreak) attest:

Q: “How are G-Unit Records doing in these times of file-sharing?

“Not so good….The advances in technology impacts everyone, and we all must adapt. Most of all hip-hop, a style of music dependent upon a youthful audience. This market consists of individuals embracing innovations faster than the fans of classical and jazz music.”

“What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn’t hurt the artists.”

“A young fan may be just as devout and dedicated no matter if he bought it or stole it.”

“The concerts are crowded and the industry must understand that they have to manage all the 360 degrees around an artist. They, (the industry), have to maximize their income from concerts and merchandise. It is the only way they can get their marketing money back.”

“The main problem is that the artists are not getting as much help developing as before file-sharing. They are now learning to peddle ringtones, not records..They don’t understand the value of a perfect piece of art.”

The key parts: file sharing doesn’t hurt the artist, concert and merchandise sales are the key to profiting from music, not direct music sales and the music industry is clueless and busy peddling ringtones. Now if only the record industry would pay attention. Those looking to support 50 Cent can find his works on BTJunkie here.

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God is a hot niche category on the Internet right now. Long ago we covered GodTube, a YouTube for Jesus types. More recently News Corp bought BeliefNet, a news and community site for Christians.

So the timing for LifeInTheFishBowl is spot on. It’s a social network and content site for Christians. It’s still in development but you can sign up for the site on the home page, read their blog and watch an overview video, below. By the look of things, they really need a web designer.

You’ll enjoy the site if you want to hang out with like minded people and debate Darwin v. the Bible, etc. But even better, these sites tend to attract women in droves. Sure, Facebook is almost 2/3 women, but Christian focused sites tend to be even more women dominated (BeliefNet’s au­dience is 70% women). So if you are Christian, or want to pretend you are Christian to date women, sign up for LifeInTheFishBow­l now.

Also, if you’re Lutheran, you can get on the board of directors of the company. Founder Joe Burnham writes “I’m writing because I’m looking for young Lutheran (http://lcms.org) geeks who might be interested in being part of the projects Board of Directors. We’re not asking for a huge commitment time wise, but we’d like to have some younger, tech savvy input as the project continues to develop over time.” Not sure why you have to be Lutheran as opposed to one of the other Christian cults, but those are the rules. And since God is backing this startup, those stock options just might be worth something some day.

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We’ve now had five 2008 presidential candidates on TechCrunch: Senator Obama, Senator Edwards, Governor Romney Senator McCain and now Senator Mike Gravel. As always, we are posting this simultaneously on TalkCrunch, where you can subscribe to the RSS feed and get the podcasts as enclosures.

Senator Gravel is a far left Democrat. In many ways he’s to the Democrats what Ron Paul is the the Republicans – he keeps them honest and frustrates the hell out of them by being vocal about issues that they’d rather not shine a spotlight on. For his views on mainstream political issues, see the video of his talk at Google a couple of months ago. He’s anti war, but he’s also in favor of, for example, selling marijuana at the local liquor store (yeah I know, that’s awesome – make a donation to his campaign here).

But in our talk we focused only on technology policy issues. And on these issues he’s surprisingly mainstream. In general he’s a supporter of Net Neutrality and fair rules in the spectrum allocations. He wants to help bridge the digital divide and he wants to support alternative energy science – in fact he’s the only candidate so far who’s said explicitly that he’d like to see a tax on carbon emissions. And if you’re in need of engineers you’ll love Senator Gravel – he’s in favor of eliminating the quota on H1B visas. Actually, he’s in favor of wide open borders and free immigration, but we got off topic in the podcast for a bit.

On a lighter note, Gravel is the first of the five candidates who says he’s a Mac guy. He switched this year and loves it. He’s also embraced YouTube and other user generated content sites. In one video he looks silently at the camera for a minute or so, then goes and throws a rock in a lake (see the transcript for his explanation). In another he actually raps, talking about the fact that the Democratic party is trying to keep him quiet:

So, yeah, he’s a little crazy. But the man speaks his mind and leaves little doubt about his position on issues. I enjoyed the conversation immensely, which went on for more than forty minutes, and I’m glad it was recorded to share it with TechCrunch readers. Listen to the podcast below or on TalkCrunch, and the transcript is at the end of the post.

Listen Now:

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We first covered the rather different advertising campaign for Microsoft’s iPod wannabe MP3 player the Zune in November. Enamored perhaps by the surrealism presented in the original campaign, Microsoft has sponsored a project called Zune-Arts, which created the above ad for the Zune.According to Wired earlier this week, the site is dedicated to creating “pieces of art, content with viral potential, instead of just a [regular] 30-second commercial.” Microsoft’s Robert Schaltenbrand said that the campaign is part of Microsoft’s push to target “the cultural core, the key influencers in society that pay attention to this kind of art,” presumably so they’ll buy Zunes. Each clip created for the project revolves around the concept of sharing, which apparently is the Zune’s main selling point.Regular TechCrunch commenter Fake Steve Ballmer claims that Microsoft has “finally cracked the cool thing” but I can’t help that think that this would be way cooler under the influence of one of a variety of drugs*, as opposed to it being appealing to a broader spectrum of key influencers. Does this make you want to go out and buy a Zune?

*TechCrunch does not condone the taking of illicit substances, description for graphical demonstration purposes only

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<![CDATA[ Rich Kulawiec writes in after digging a bit deeper into a well publicized study done for Verizon, claiming that most Americans have a false sense of security on their computers. Digging a little deeper, you realize that the „study“ is really a marketing ploy for a new security service Verizon is offering with RadialPoint (oddly, this seems to come just two months after Verizon announced a different security service). As for this new offering, there's a free scan and then a subscription service. Of course, in order to run the security scan on your computer you need to: (1) be running windows (2) disable your pop-up blocker and (3) run IE. As Kulawiec notes, „none of which are good ideas for anyone who actually cares about security.“ Kulawiec then went to check out the terms of service for the subscription offering and found some questionable claims:

a. You acknowledge, agree and consent to the following: (i)
the Radialpoint Software, in its default configuration, does
not block ads from third parties or Verizon or its affiliates
and business partners, and may not identify as spyware certain
websites and applications from Verizon and its affiliates or
business partners,

and

(ii) Radialpoint Inc. and/or Verizon and
its affiliates have the right and do access and modify the
Software as well as the software (including registry settings
on your computer) and/or your hardware for various purposes
in connection with the Service (e.g. for the installation and
implementation of the Software and updates to it) as well as
to download, install and/or gather, obtain, collect and then
use, in relation to the delivery and operation of Services,
various information and data, including information necessary
to identify you and your computer to ensure that Services are
received as well as information necessary for the reporting of
these services , and (iii) use of such information and data by
Verizon will be in accordance with Verizon's privacy policy.

 

That certainly sounds like Verizon won't block spyware from ad partners and will also spy on you and report the data back to Verizon. Yikes. No wonder people's computers aren't as secure as they think. If they're installing Verizon's anti-spyware offering, the company's own terms of service make it clear that you're basically opening up your computer to them. As for not blocking partner company's spyware, that's the same thing that Yahoo got into trouble over years ago – but apparently Verizon hopes people have forgotten.

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Some of my worst retail memories are of moments spent at CompUSA. Bad prices. Bad selection. Customer anti-service. Don’t even think about returns. Walking into a CompUSA store is just about the polar opposite of walking into, say, an Apple store.

Well, it’s in the deadpool now. They’re closing all of their remaining 103 stores.

The upside of all of this is that the stores will likely be selling all their stuff at big discounts.

Have a particularly egregious story to share about CompUSA? Tell me all about it. You’ll feel better after the purge.

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<![CDATA[ Anyone that watches late night television is constantly reminded of America's growing beltline. To combat our obesity epidemic, infomercials abound with the latest exercise gizmos that promise to make us all fitter. But, most of these gadgets end up gathering dust in the corner since they don't do anything to motivate us to actually use them. So, need help getting off that couch? Have your computer call you. Stanford researchers have found that an automated computer message reminding people to get out and exercise is nearly as effective as a human counselor. People who were called by the computer exercised an average of 157 minutes per week, as compared to 118 minutes for the people who weren't called. Not bad – if only someone could figure out how to actually get the computer to do the exercising, that would truly be the killer app.

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I’d think this was a joke, except for the USPTO entry. Fark has lodged a trademark application for the term “Not Safe For Work.”

According to this USPTO entry, Fark wants sole rights over NSFW in the following areas:

Entertainment Services namely providing a website featuring photographic, audio, video and prose presentations featuring comedic captions regarding current events and online discussions and/or reviews of web materials of an adult nature; Entertainment services, namely, providing a web site featuring musical performances, musical videos, related film clips, photographs, and other multimedia materials; Entertainment services, namely, providing on-line reviews of photogrpahs and /or web postings of an adult nature

As Trademork points out, it might be a little difficult to protect and enforce this mark given its already widespread usage, including a range of other websites the use the term (and the NSFW abbreviation) in their title. NSFW has also become a common term used widely to the point that it even has its own Dictionary entry.

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