Google ads prompt Christmas lights Hoax

A Lafayette, Colorado man “boasted to reporters around the world that his web site allowed strangers to turn his outdoor Christmas lights on and off”. He now says it was just an elaborate hoax. Computer specialist Alek Komarnitsky says he just wanted to spread holiday cheer.

Mr. Komarnitsky even flew in TV station KMGH's "Air Tracker 7" helicopter on the 15th of December and told the Denver ABC affiliate's audience about the 17,000 Christmas lights flashing a thousand feet below on his Colorado home. He told the TV station audience that they could log on to his web site and control his Christmas lights.

Lots of people were taken in because his web site was featured in numerous holiday stories as a result of the KMGH TV helicopter getting in on the act. Even AP fell for the story. But that’s no surprise because Associated Press has been as quick as CBS to jump into a story with both feet before checking out the accuracy.

Most of the news reports about this story missed the real reason for the hoax. Mr. Komarnitsky just wanted to increase traffic to his web site in hopes they would click on the Google “pay per click” ads. He made money from the “pay per click” ads posted on his site but says it only amounted to "pennies" for each hit on the ads. A spokesman for Google says its looking into the matter further

Komarnitsky said he decided to announce his scam to The Wall Street Journal because it had gotten "a little out of hand." KMGH TV in Denver has egg on its face and Mr. Komarnitsky has some explaining to do. The Wall Street Journal article can be found here. Click here for Fox news coverage. Denver Channel 7 KMGH original coverage on December 15 is here. The later Channel 7 KMGH “egg on face” coverage is here. The Komarnitsky’s revised web site (sans Google ads) is here.

I can attest to his claim of “pennies per click” on his Google ads. I have Google ads on this blog. In the last week this blog had 800 hits and 1,250 page views. During that time my Google ad click earnings amounted to less than one dollar. Needless to say my Google ad click earnings won’t be enough to put me in a high tax bracket.

Comments

[alek]

Actually, I would say the AP article (which is the one that went national) did a very good job of "emphasizing" the Google Ads and went so far as to quote one of the advertisers, Paul McLellen, as saying I was "unethical" and that Google was "looking into the matter" ... heck, I got one Email suggesting I should get a lawyer - sounds pretty bad and I only did it to make a buck, eh?!? ;-) HOWEVER, the very next morning, Paul issued his own press release saying that "my words were misconstrued to mean something entirely different" when the AP quoted him saying Alek was "unethical" and Paul continues on to say "I sincerely appreciate his intent of spreading Christmas cheer!" ... here's Paul website - http://www.servicelighting.com/komar.cfm And later that same morning, Google responded saying they were OK with me. I'm kinda surprised people here are posting numbers, since the Google Adsense Terms and Conditions says you aren't allowed to do that, so while I can't comment on my $$$, I have publically stated that I would have been a LOT better off taking that $10,000 offer from the local radio station to run ads on my site. Rest assured that my income from this won't change my tax bracket either! ;-) BTW, I've run Google Adsense since 2003 on most of the pages on my site. I've never run a banner ad on my main web page, but I did add the search by Google sometime in 2004 - it's useful. Hope you don't mind me chiming in Peter - you can read my whole writeup at http://www.komar.org/xmas/hoax/ and I comment on the media inaccuracies that I'd encourage people to read my two cents on all that ... and then form your own opinion. http://www.komar.org/xmas/hoax/media.html

[East]

Veri interesting... Google - black horse. Best regards, East, http://sundries.blogspot.com

[Bithead]

I'm hip, Perry, to the Google Ads bit. You know this, but your readers may not, Adsense tells me my account has made a grand total of $14.72 as of day before yesterday. Since I started running AdSense ads in September, that comes out to $3.68 per month, average. Since, by Adsense policy, I won't get paid until the payable total comes out to $100 or better, I figure I should get my first payment for ads on this blog about December of 2008... Four years from now. Whoopty-freakin'-dooo.