Click Fraud

Click fraud is a form of internet advertising fraud that occurs in pay-per-click systems, in which a person, automated script, computer program or auto clicker imitates a legitimate user clicking on an advertisement with no genuine interest in it, inflating the revenue owed to whoever hosts the ad. The practice creates a conflict of interest because advertising networks, which profit from fraudulent clicks alongside publishers, act as both intermediaries and interested parties, and it has produced significant litigation, including a 2005 Yahoo settlement covering legal fees and advertiser claims and a 2006 Google settlement of 90 million dollars in a class action lawsuit known as Lane's Gifts. Individual prosecutions have followed as well, including the 2006 arrest of a man over an attempted extortion tied to click fraud software, later dropped, and the extradition and conviction on a misdemeanor of a man tied to a 140,000 computer botnet used to commit the fraud.