Click fraud lawsuit targets Google

Software maker Click Defense sues search giant, charging it with poor defense against ad abuse.

The story "Click fraud lawsuit targets Google" published June 30, 2005 at 5:52 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[raitchison]

Got extortion?

This seems like a rather obvious case of extortion if you ask me. I can picture the "negotiations" now.

Click Defense: Buy our software

Google: No thanks, we're good

Click Defense: Buy it or we'll file a lawsuit and make lots of public statements saying you are allowing your customers to be ripped off (reminding them that people beleive anything they read on the IntArweb)

Google: Pack Sand

Click Defense: You'll regret this, it'll now cost you 10x as much as our ****** software

Why don't we hold companies and individuals criminally resposible for this kinds of abuse of the legal system?

[Below Meigh]

Why don't we hold companies and individuals criminally resposible ?

Good question.
let's ask those Supreme Court Justices 5 that felt is ok also to take our property because ***** developer concocts theory of profit on ratables of non-existant tenants.

Perhaps a law that states:
-if you sue someone and its meritless/frivalous, you forfeit all (company, monies, life)
-if you run for president, you lose your senate seat even if you don't win.

[Dean_Ansari]

You are either an idiot or Google shareholder

Google & Yahoo are profiting from this fraud to the tunes of Billions of dollars.
How the hell are the Advertisers supposed to prevent this fraud (fraudulent clicks)?
They have no control over which Web sites Google & Yahoo place their ads, they have no control over the fraudulent clicks by crooks who are setting up fake web sites to get Google & Yahoo ads, etc.

Following your logic of holding the customer liable for the mistake of the vendor, then I guess next time you flew on an Airline and they lost or destroyed your luggage, then it is your fault.
Following your logic, the court should tell you:
"You are too stupid to have flew with this airline knowing that they may loose your luggage..."

Put another way your argument for not holding Google & Yahoo liable for this massive multi Billion dollar fraud is patently absurd and if applied to any other industry would mean that the vendors are not responsbile for damages donw to customers but that customers should know better than use that vendor...

[Dean_Ansari]

Google & Yahoo are completely guilty in this case

It is about time that someone Sued Google & Yahoo for this incredible theft that they have been committing for sometime.
That is placing of so called Ads in other companies web pages, which has given rise to an industry of web sites that create fake pages for simple purpose of getting Ads via goolge & yahoo and then hire an army of clickers in China and elsewhere to click away (by click, clean the cookie & click) to make money off the hapless companies that are advertising through google & yahoo.
I mean why should google & yahoo care that the advertisers are getting ripped off by this fraud, after all they get their cut off the fraud, it is only the Advertisers that are getting royally screwed by this fraudulent spawning practice of google & yahoo.
In fact I am sure once this case is certified to be class action that the award request will rise to Billions of dollars because that is the scope of the fraud which goolge & yahoo are perpetuating by this Ad sense of theirs.

[raitchison]

To give you the benefit of the doubt

That you don't work for Click Defense.

If you will read the article, this suit is not being brought by some poor advertiser that was supposedly ripped off. This is being brought by a company that sells software that claims to prevent click fraud.

At best this is a publicity stunt for click defense, at worst this is click defense making Google suffer for not paying "protection" money by buying their software.

[raitchison]

You are the one with flawed logic

To try to fix your flawed analogy this would be like XYZ Lock Company suing the airlines claiming that they don't do enough to prevent lost/stolen luggage (by buying XYZ's locks for all their customers)

[TV James]

Yeah, bogus.

At first, I thought this was some company who had been ripped off by click fraud and having trouble getting Google to compensate them.

But this is just plain wrong... they want to sell more software. So they're hoping to draw attention to themselves and the "problem" so that people will buy their software.

I hope it backfires. I hope people become so aware of it that they are able to avoid it on their own and have no use for those losers.

Personally, I would say that 1 time out of 100 that I do a search on Google do I even notice the ads. Most of my searches are research, not potentially purchase related. And when I do actually click on an ad, I'm not going to purchase right away. It might be days before I make a purchase (if at all) and I have to search on Google a second time to find that ad again, if it's still there. I'm not convinced that pay-per-click text ads is really a smart way to do get your advertising message out to the people. As much as I hate ads, it's the GE ones on CNET where you move your mouse over them and the cars disappear or the Texas Tourism ad on MSNBC where you can fill out a form and request more info without even leaving the article that have a lot more impact on me than text-based ads off to the side of the search. I usually don't even notice them over there.