Google, on Wednesday disclosed data showing that while its pay-per-click Web advertising system is under regular attack from fraudsters, virtually all such tricks are automatically detected, rebuffing critics who say its online ads are a magnet for fraud.

Click fraud can occur when Web site publishers attempt to trick Google’s ad system into counting ads never seen by real users, or when competitors use automated programs to create fake clicks, driving up charges per click and rivals’ ad rates.

Invalid clicks also regularly occur if consumers click on an ad then instantly click the back button to exit the ad. Google discounts both.

Financially, what this means for Google is that its computers automatically reject up to 10 percent of potential advertising billings. At current revenue levels, every percentage point of invalid clicks the company forgoes costs Google $100 million in lost revenue, the product manager said.

Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google’s product manager for trust and safety, said in an interview that, on average, up to 10 percent of pay-per-click activity is invalid, and in some cases fraudulent, but that its computers automatically detect virtually all such problems, meaning advertisers pay nothing.

Google Inc., fighting to consolidate its trademark globally, faces an obstacle in the world’s second largest Web market — China’s www.Gmail.cn, which is refusing to sell its Internet address to the U.S. giant.

A legal source told Reuters on Monday that Google was trying to buy the Internet domain name www.gmail.cn, which is run by Beijing-based ISM Technologies.

The name closely resembles Google’s internationally known email service, www.gmail.com, and the colors in which the two logos are written are similar. The “.cn” suffix is commonly used for Chinese domain names.

Google recently began offering free Gmail accounts in China to promote its brand among local users.

“Google has contacted Gmail.cn about the Web address and logo issue, but there is no progress so far,” said a legal source in Shanghai familiar with the situation.

After years of delays and billions in development and marketing efforts, it would seem that Microsoft Corp. would want anyone who possibly can to buy its new Windows Vista operating system. Yet Microsoft is making it hard for Mac owners and other potentially influential customers to adopt the software.

Microsoft says the blockade is necessary for security reasons. But that is disputed. The circumstances might simply reflect a business decision Microsoft doesn’t want to explain.

The situation involves a technology known as virtualization. Essentially, it lets one computer mimic multiple machines, even ones with different operating systems. It does this by running multiple applications at the same time, but in separate realms of the computer.

Virtualization has long been used in corporate data centers as a way to increase server efficiency or to test programs in a walled-off portion of a machine. The technology also has been available for home users, but often at the expense of the computer’s performance.

The sin of vanity will whisper in your ear, telling you how impressive your stats are. It’s easy to get caught up with the number of hits your Web site has gained or how many referrers you’ve added or even which keywords are most popular. But if you get buried in the numbers and lose sight of your customer, there’s a downside as well.

Pride. Greed. Envy. There are plenty of sins in the Web analytics world, and some of them can even be deadly.
Indeed, while there are any number of little mistakes you could make analyzing your data — like basing important business decisions on hits instead of unique visitors or neglecting the 20 percent of search terms that could be sending droves of visitors through your virtual doors — some mistakes can be downright sinful.

Ultimately, the seven deadly sins of Web analytics violate your corporate goal of optimizing your site to turn online traffic into online sales. If you find yourself in the midst of these seven sins, it’s time to change your ways and set yourself free from the snares of wasted time and money.

The mobile telecoms industry turned its focus on India at this year’s 3GSM trade fair and away from China, after years of talking about little else but China’s huge market and potential third generation licenses.

Vodafone’s $11 billion deal to buy a controlling stake in India’s fourth-biggest mobile phone firm, Hutchison Essar, announced on the eve of fair, set the agenda as those participants who had not already done so woke up to India’s potential.

With 150 million subscribers but market penetration of still only 15 percent, India is already the world’s fourth-biggest mobile market behind China, the United States and Russia.

It is also the fastest-growing major market and is expected to overtake Russia this year. At its current growth rate, there will be half a billion mobile subscribers in India by 2010.