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Recently we noticed click-throughs for one client on a small PPC provider began climbing through the roof. All the clicks were for a particularly competitive phrase. Where in the previous month we had seen only several dozen visits from this provider. In April, we saw several hundred.

At the same time, our client began receiving calls from some irate customers. They claimed that our client was hijacking their computers and forcing their start page to contain a link to our client’s website.

Turns out that the PPC provider had a bad affiliate who was inserting the the top five listings for a number of terms into a nasty spyware application. The entire purpose of the application was to force deliver PPC listings.

We ultimately resolved the issue with the help of the search provider. But, it makes me wonder if this will ultimately diminish the value of the smaller players who tend to rely on the smaller affiliates?