clicking all the advertisers links seems like an awfully nice thing to do for them, assuming they're paid per click

It may seem nice at the beginning, but as you saturate the service with fake clicks, the PPC value will drop to near-zero.

Some keywords are so competitive that they have PPC rates that are close to $100 PER CLICK

For example, anything related to pyramid schemes like Xango, Avon, etc. Keyword space is SUPER competitive for "indenependent distributors" and so their PPC rates are through the roof

MLMs seem like one of the best target for indiscriminate application of AdNauseam, for more than one reason.

Assuming they don't know how to separate fake clicks, which can be done within a reasonable level of accuracy. It ends up being a war between digital ad agencies and the users. I can see who has the most motivation here and therefore higher chances of winning.

Tangential, but makes me think: could all those happy campers who like to DDoS GitHub and Freenode in their spare time target an ad bidding node instead? I'd love to see that happen. Do it for teh good old-school lulz.

Hum... I just thought that we rarely see here a tech showdown from ad companies, or employees (It might be because they'd be bullied to hell), for what we know they could have the most impressive anti-DDoS tech in the world.

Well it would be nice if you could whitelist sites you think are worth the clicks. So, sites you like get a lot more click revenue, because you clicked every add. While the desired effect of diluting PPC would be reduced, you wouldn't be giving revenue to sites that you don't think are worth it.

agred 100%

How do you feel about paywalls?

Paywalls has a very drastic effect on companies that depend on their articles and videos to get shared on social networks and news aggregates. If they wall in their content then they will also only reach people within that wall.

If they are small enough, niche enough, or entrenched enough, then it sometimes seems to work for a limited time. Personally I don't find it a major threat.

The problem is you're viewing advertisers as a monolith.

And advertisers view us as commodities.

Broad strokes and wide assumptions go both ways.

Aren't they? I thought 90% of ads would be spread over a tiny handful of advertisers.

What I'd really like is something that uses stylometry to track astroturfer comments, shills, fake news authors, advertisements parading as news, and PR campaigns, etc. Then just have those articles identified on places like Hacker News, Reddit, etc. Optional to block them if you want.

Keep a list of identified writers/writer 'styles' that are penned by fraudsters. Like easy-list is for ads.

That'd be the only way to clean up to the net. For a while at least.

The problem is the subjectivity of half the items on your list.