Osama on Orkut

Jim Hedger of Webmaster Radio has made public a report that ads served by Google on the sites of Google AdSense publishers who are connected with Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups are benefiting those groups, which are resorting to click fraud to derive revenue from Google advertisers, reports Search Engine Journal.

Insurgent-based networks are using clickbots, automated programs that click on Google advertisements, to click on the PPC ads on terrorist-affiliated publishers' sites. The terrorist cyber-hustle works like this:

1. Groups set up blogs and sites that serve Google AdSense ads
2. Commit click fraud on those sites
3. Collect revenue from Google
4. Donate revenue to "charities" that funnel funds to terror groups

The properties serving Google's PPC ads are housed on Google's Orkut social network. Orkut pages have been set up by Hezbollah, Iraqi insurgent and other terror-oriented groups and number in the hundreds, according to Hedger.