According to a report by Benjamin Edelman an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, Google is defrauding advertisers. Professor Edelman claims that Google is charging advertisers for traffic that would normally have been free. One example the professor illustrates is that when a user types a web address into Google’s Chrome browser the browser will automatically suggest a web site and encourage a display of search results instead of taking the user directly to the desired web site.

Professor Edelman states, “Google and its partners systematically inflate advertisers’ conversion rates by interceding in transactions advertisers would otherwise have received for free. This conversion-inflation syndication fraud overstates the true effectiveness of the ads Google delivers — leading advertisers to pay more than they should.”

Edelman describes other methods in his report that are used to deceive users and advertisers by misdirection such as with typosquatting, the use of toolbars, etc. all methods in which Edelman claims that Google has an underlying hand in by allowing their ads to display under these circumstances.

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