YOU read it here first: the internet is not all it is cracked up to be. We’ve been here before, of course, on March 7, 2000, the day after the stock market peaked. But boom-and-bust is easily forgotten this century.

Google, it appears, has been forced to admit that it has a bit of a problem with click fraud — that’s where computers are trained to click repeatedly on a sponsored link to hurt the advertiser financially. Almost all of Google’s revenue is generated on a pay-per-click basis, which sounds entirely fair at first glance, but is wide open to fraud. As a cartoon in The New Yorker showed, on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog.

No one, of course, has a clue how many clicked-on links stem from the activities of people searching for spanners, second-hand cars or secretarial jobs and how many are computerised fakes. Stabs in the dark suggest that up to 30 per cent of supposedly genuine commercial internet traffic is fraudulent. That would represent a lot of Google’s $6.1 billion (£3.5 billion) revenue.

So the search engine has agreed to offer up to $90 million in compensation covering the four years since it introduced its pay-per-click method of billing. Some of that money will go to lawyers, so aggrieved advertisers are likely to get only modest compensation. Google appears to have capped its liability at a low price.

Google’s problem, though, is not the only disquieting sign for the internet. Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit, has been plagued by allegations of inaccuracy. It recently emerged that researchers employed by some politicians in the US have been making their masters’ profiles more flattering. The distortions have been spotted, but there is always a risk of abuse when the encyclopaedia is open to all. Such abuses will become more sophisticated over time.

Talking up traditional media is a bit unfashionable, unless you are a senior executive in one of those companies, but professional editing of content plus audited advertising data exist for a reason — to give readers and buyers confidence. These types of controls are in scarce supply at some of the most successful properties on the web, largely because they have been rejected.

A glance at Google video demonstrates how unattractive the unfiltered tastes of the public can be. Meanwhile, the resilience of Reed Elsevier’s scientific publications — never a popular cause — demonstrates the enduring value of edited content. National newspapers work on the principle that, to some extent, people like to have their prejudices reinforced.

Of course, people have long been able to distinguish between word-of-mouth type information (isn’t the internet just one long conversation?) and better-researched material. These two types of information will eventually find a balance — whatever happens, the internet won’t conquer all.

New man lifts the Standard

BERT HARDY, 77, was not the most obvious choice to become the Evening Standard’s managing director last year. But what is likely to be one of Daily Mail and General Trust’s last sentimental decisions — ahead of pain elsewhere — is turning out well enough.

Hardy’s commercial formula for the long-struggling Standard — whose losses have hit £18 million in recent years — is not exactly dramatic. But unflashy, low-key initiatives can go a long way. These include a 20p price promotion, keeping the Standard Lite giveaway to 77,000 copies, and stapling the paid-for title for an upmarket feel. The page count has been held at about 64 pages to help advertising yields to recover.

Even so, Hardy can point only to a reduction in the rate of decline. The Standard’s year-on-year circulation fall was running at a precipitous 13.6 per cent in October. It has improved in Hardy’s short tenure to 3.4 per cent last month.

That’s a victory of sorts, although the veteran executive still believes that newspapers remain in decline. If he’s right, how long will Lord Rothermere’s family indulge the still-weak evening title, given their worries about regional titles elsewhere in the country?

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