Originally Posted by CaleyD

You hear the advertisers moaning about the practice of arbitrage, but it only works when you can buy cheap at one place and sell for a profit elsewhere. In other words, if they did their homework and spent their advertising budgets with a bit more savvy then they would not fall foul of the practice because they would be spending where they were getting the most bang for the buck instead of being lazy and expecting everyone else to do the work for them.

Banning arbitrage is, IMO, nothing more than restricting free trade. Since when did it become "wrong" to buy something cheap at one place and sell it for a profit elsewhere?

I look after some online advertising accounts for people, and when they see headlines in the press about things such as arbitrage and come to me with complaints that they feel they are being ripped off, I simply point out how much I have reduced their advertising costs or increased what they are getting for the money they spend. And I also point out that this simple practice is vastly reducing the risk of things such as arbitrage impacting on them. By simply shopping around for the best value for money supplier, as companies do with just about every aspect of their business, they save money and stop sending it into the black pit of "arbitrage".

I won't pay $1 on Yahoo for something if I can get it on Google for $0.50.....and if advertisers are doing that (and they obviously are), then that is their own look out. It's their inability/unwillingness to shop around and do a bit of leg work that creates the arbitrage market and they are the ones best placed to put an end to it by simply not paying over the odds on one network when they can get it cheaper elsewhere.

Any advertiser coming on and crying about arbitrage....I point at you and laugh and I tell you to get your own affairs in order before you start pointing the finger at others. It is YOUR own stupidity that is creating the market, and as with everything in life, if their is a market there then someone will take advantage of it.....and rightly so, because it is everyones right to make an honest living, even if that is from the stupidity of others.