Times of India: India's secret army of online ad 'clickers'

Companies mobilizing armies of foreign housewives and students are scamming pay-per-click advertisers. The Times of India interviewed several participants. "I have no interest in what appears when clicking an ad. I care only whether to pause 60 seconds or 90 seconds, as money is credited if you stay online for a fixed time," said one. They earn about a quarter for each click-and-wait. The industry is becoming so large that middlemen have sprung up to allow clickers to be paid in cash, rather than through PayPal accounts. They take about one in seven rupees as commission.

Some advertisers experienced consternation in the past two years when successful pay-per-click campaigns suddenly turned sour, with click delivery happening faster than ever and no sales made despite massive amounts of reported traffic. In many cases, U.S. pay-per-click networks were successfully made by ad agencies to produce makegoods for the garbage traffic.