Click-fraud concerns hound Google

John Thys still has not figured out how much his company has paid Google for bogus sales referrals caused by "click-fraud" -- a sham aimed at a perceived weakness in the internet search leader's advertising network.

But Thys says he has uncovered enough of it to conclude that Google is trying to shortchange his company and thousands of other advertisers by offering refunds totaling $60-million to settle a lawsuit.

"It's almost like an insult that they expect us to take this token money," said Thys, director of internet marketing for Radiator.com.

Google also expects to pay $30-million to the lawyers who settled the case on behalf of advertisers, raising the settlement's total value to as high as $90-million. Still, that is a fraction of the more than $10-billion in cash held by the search company......

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