How Much Do Search Engines Make From Adware/Spyware? (GOOG, IACI, MSFT, YHOO)

Adware and Spyware legal expert Ben Edelman has attempted to estimate the profits made by Google and Yahoo from clients who peddle Adware and/or Spyware via screensavers. Ben did a study of pay-per-click ads for "screensavers", most of which are supplied by Adware or Spyware vendors. His results:

Every time a user clicks through a search engine ad, the search engine gets paid. Google doesn't ordinarily say how much advertisers pay. But Yahoo (which does) charges about $0.25 for a “screensavers

Comments

[aripap:]

You're missing the real story. How much distribution do search engines have through "contextual" pop-ups spawned by adware companies? A lot, but it's not distributed evenly between the companies. Some have enormous exposure and others little.

2006 Jan 30 08:40 PM