Google sued for click fraud (Adwords)

[digifan]

A class action lawsuit was filed in US District Court against Google alleging breach of contract, negligence, unjust enrichment, and unfair business practices-all involving charges of click fraud. Click Defense Inc, a click fraud protection firm, filed the suit in California in the name of an unknown number of plaintiffs for an amount not less than $5 million.

Click fraud is the term used in the Internet search industry to describe the practice of clicking on search advertisements to run up the costs on advertisers.

Click fraud, estimated by some to be as high as 20% of all clicks, is caused by those with a vested interest using software that clicks on the ad hundreds or thousands of times to either drain the advertising budget of a rival company, or create revenue for the seller of the ad space.

The lawsuit claims that since 99% of Google's revenue comes from advertising, Google has a huge financial interest in doing little about the instance of fraudulent clicks and criticizes the search giant for failure to disclose its own estimate of the number of fraudulent clicks.

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/bl...nsevgoogle.pdf