The Legal Issues Surrounding Click Fraud

Problems surrounding click fraud have been proliferating since the very beginning of pay per click advertising. Unfortunately, not every person who engages in an entrepreneur is an honest person. That is why they may take liberties with clicking on ads not to learn more about the advertiser and his product. Rather, they are clicking on their own ads with the express purpose of enriching themselves through ill-gotten clicks. Never fall into this category if you are a PPC marketer! Often, when such a profiteer is discovered through PPC tracking programs, the person pay per click account will be dissolved. As a result, they will lose any potential payments. However, this could prove to be the least of their worries as it is also possible to fall into in legal hot water for click fraud if such fraudulent business practices involve a great deal of money.

When you agree to the terms of agreement to a Pay Per Click company, you are signing a contractual agreement. Upon this agreement, you will be required to follow the established rules and conditions and avoid any barred behavior. If you do commit any fraudulent behavior, you have breached the contract and lose any claim on monetary rewards. Additionally, under certain circumstances, willful violation of the contract could also lead to criminal penalties as may be the case with blatant click fraud. And yes, ad tracking software can often expose such fraud and the results can be used as evidence against the perpetrator.

In some jurisdictions such as the state of California, committing click fraud is a felony. That means anyone who is caught pilfering money through a click fraud venture could be prosecuted and sentenced to a prison term. The duration of the sentence will vary depending upon how much money was illegally procured. However, it is safe to say the more money a fraudster appropriates illegally, the longer the prison sentence will be. Usually, the ability to succeed in a large scale click fraud case will center on using computer scripts to automatically click on ads. When ad tracker based evidence of such a venture is entered into court, juries will doubtfully look positively on such a defendant. After all, the defendant has taken many clear steps to purposely commit an act of fraud to acquire undeserved payments. As such, it is doubtful leniency will be offered.

Also, if someone has required a great deal of income through a PPC venture and it is later discovered fraud has occurred, it is possible for the PPC company to file a civil lawsuit to recoup the improper payments. However, it may be possible for the PPC company to seek punitive damages as well. This could lead to an enormous judgment against those who have committed serious volumes of monetary fraud.

Then, there is another aspect to click fraud legal issues that some may not be aware of. The advertiser can sue the PPC company to recoup the payments is made due to the result of third party click fraud. For example, in 2006, Google agreed to a lawsuit settlement of $90 million with a company called Lane’s Gifts and Collectibles. This occurred after the company proved it paid out millions of dollars to Google for ad clicks that were committed by fraudulent activity. Needless to say, companies such as Google will certainly pursue those who commit fraud aggressively because Google can find itself in legal hot water when fraud occurs.

Yes, there are those who may be able to get away with committing click fraud for the short term. However, once they are discovered, the legal issues that can derive could be significant. Hopefully, this will dissuade a large enough number or people that instances of click fraud will reduce over time.