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Advertising - Friday, February 9, 2007

Click Fraud Experts Click Forensics Raises $5M

Austin, TX-based Click Forensics - which sells click-fraud reporting for online advertisers, has raised $5M in first-round funding led by Austin Ventures led the deal, and joined by Shasta Ventures.

It is amazing to us how primitive the online advertising industry is when it comes to click fraud. Advertisers and publishers consistently meet each with dramatically different numbers and then make guesses about how much click fraud occurred. Every advertiser and publisher has different standards for defining Click Fraud.

As Click Forensics puts it: "Advertisers who run television or radio spots receive a notarized affidavit at the end of each month. In the online space there is no such process in place. Our position is that advertisers and publishers should have open dialogue and find common ground."

Click Forensics plans to deal with the issue by:

+ Creating a community of advertisers to pool information, resources and ideas.
+ Defining the industry standards for what an unwanted click looks like.
+ Agreeing on a format to submit reports.

Read - Click Forensics Raises $5M (Press release)