The Dollar Factory

Google refuses to prosecute alleged click-fraudster

BusinessWeek’s Ben Elgin has written a very interesting article titled The Vanishing Click-Fraud Case describing how Google refused to provide the necessary evidence to prosecute Michael Anthony Bradley from Oak Park, California, who in 2004 tried to blackmail Google. Specifically, Mr. Bradley met with Google engineers and demonstrated his “Google Clique” click fraud software claiming that unless Google pays him $150,000 he would release it online costing Google millions of dollars in fraudulent clicks. Google had of course notified the police who taped the meeting and eventually arrested Mr. Bradley. Oddly enough, just a week ago, charges against Mr. Bradley were dismissed for the simple reason that Google refused to provide evidence of click fraud as requested by the U.S. Attorney’s office. Google claims that releasing any information about how they detect click fraud would make it possible for people to exploit the system and as such they refused to provide the data requested. This is the same reason that Google does not share click fraud data with the users of their advertising programs.

Google obviously had two choices and they made the one they thought was the best for their business. But was Google afraid of hurting sales because of increased click fraud once their methods became known or was Google afraid that advertisers would finally learn the true size of click fraud? Many third parties claim that click fraud rates are more than 15% but Google claims that it is much less than 10%. It is hard to tell which number is right because there really is no precise definition of click fraud. It is very likely that both numbers are correct given each party’s definition. That said, I wonder if prosecuting someone for click fraud would help discourage others from trying it. It is not a small thing to be faced with 20 years in prison just as the very fortunate Mr. Bradley.

For additional information on click fraud you can also read another article I wrote, “Google’s click fraud woes.”