Google Facing Class Action Lawsuit on Click Fraud

Google, Inc. has been sued by AIT, a “two-time” INC 500 Company, who has advertised with Google for years, as the representative plaintiff in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

The suit is based on fraudulent clicks and Google’s refusal to take steps against it even though the company is well aware of the practice and allegedly capable of preventing it. The suit is seeking for class action status.

“Google is able to block spamming efforts from its own Google Gmail service and should do the same to protect its pay-per-click advertising clients. However, Google chooses to do nothing because substantive action would both invalidate the current paid search model and because a lot of people are making a lot of money from this,” said Clarence Briggs, AIT’s Chief Executive Officer.

Source: AIT Files Lawsuit Against Google for Breach of Contract and Unfair Business Practices; Seeks Class Action Status

This is the most ridiculous statement I have heard in a long time. Blocking email spam is totally unrelated (w.r.t. technology and problem domain) to blocking click-fraud. Blocking email spam is thousand times more easier than blocking click-fraud.

The primary problem lies in the way Google AdSense now admits anyone in its program. However even being choosy is not a guarantee that click-fraud will not happen. Publishers can always bait-and-switch. It will however significantly reduce the number of fly-by-night operators.

There are several things Google can do to reduce the click-fraud. However I don’t think it can fully eliminate the problem with the current state of technology.