YouTube will now periodically check the authenticity of the number of hits and substract illegitimate views from the total number of hits. As explained in an official statement, this is a move directed against the "bad guys" who are not only creating a false impression that certain content is very popular by artificially increasing the number of visits, but also undermine one of the largest and most important quality of YouTube.  

The company also warned users that the cooperation with certain marketing companies that promise a greater number of visits can also lead to the generation of false hits on video, and that such videos will be removed after a revision.

[Ed - for those of you that have worked with Google (and You Tube) you know that Googles enforcement of these policies can be spotty and arbitrary. I have heard of them censoring people's content for copyright infringement despite the content being completely original. I have seen them close down channels for no adequately explained reason. It has the same draconian feeling that the iTunes app approval process does: if they like you, you may pass. We do hope that this new system will be fair and cut down on channels that are faking views, but in all likelihood this is only going to hurt the little guys and have no effect on some of the larger (and abusive) channels that are out there.]

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