Take a bite out of crime!

Want to hit credit card companies where it hurts? Waste some of their advertising money! Next time you see their ads on google, Overture, MSN go ahead and click on each one of them. It does not cost you anything but it costs them money. Yeap Google picks up the money but it certainly feels good when these credit card sharks have to pay a dollar or so a click for each completely irrelevant visitor. This is probably the most effective way to boycott them.

For those that do not understand Google adwords (or Overture/MSN for that matter) the links on the right and the top two "highlighted" links are sponsored. Every time you click on them, the sponsor is charged an amount depending on the position and bid price. The cost ranges from 25 cents up to several dollars depending on the bid value for a particular keyword. The way that multiple clicks from the same user are differentiates is usually via IP address (the address of your computer on the Internet) or a cookie (a file identifying you to Google). Therefore clicking on the same ad 10 times on the same Google visit does not count as ten clicks but rather one. The next day you visit however you get a new start... Also using another computer gives you a fresh start.

Funnily that is the little dirty secret about keyword advertising. How can one protect these paid clicks from coming via competitors or people wanting to exhaust the advertisers budget? Commonly refered as "click fraud" this is a major problem that search engines selling clicks do not seem to be able to combat. Meantime I find this a brilliant way to boycott companies which advertise on the Internet.

Pass the word around and happy clicking!

PS. In case somebody thinks this as a promotion of click fraud please think again. I just mentioned what is common sense.