Cooperative approaches

  Though the schemes of Sections 2 and 3 enable participants in a click-through program to approximate the number of click-throughs for which they should be paid, there is still some room for error in these approaches. In this section, we show that even greater accuracy can be achieved if site B cooperates with site A to enable A to more effectively monitor B's behavior. While the schemes of this section require cooperation by site B, this does not imply that A must fully trust B. Rather, if B misbehaves, then it risks detection by site A, with high probability if A combines the approaches of this section with those of Sections 2 and 3. Site B might be willing to cooperate in these schemes to instill trust in its referrers, in the hopes of obtaining more clients for its click-through program.