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Comment by otterley | Hacker News Reader

Attorney here! (But not your attorney and not giving legal advice -- seek qualified counsel in your state if you need assistance.)

Sending automated clicks to ads arguably meets all the elements of common-law fraud:

(1) A false representation of fact (that the user clicked on the ad);

(2) Knowledge of the falsity (by the user installing and using the extension);

(3) Intent to deceive the party by making the false representation (that is the extension's stated purpose!);

(4) Reasonable reliance by the innocent party (by believing the "click" was real and intended);

(5) Actual loss suffered (by paying the owner/operator of the page containing the ad)

In my view, therefore, "fraud" is an applicable term.

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You're missing a few elements. One of which is, "the injured party’s right to rely thereon"[0] (unless that's what you mean by #4 above).

"A party does not have a right to rely on a representation if she is aware the representation is false, not enforceable, or not made to her."

It's clearly arguable that the ad network knows that a browser is able to click on an ad in an automated fashion. Thus, they do not have a right to rely on that representation, as it is not enforceable.

[0] - http://www.mitchell-attorneys.com/legal-articles/common-law-...

Knowing that it is possible for a representation to be falsified (what you describe the ad network as knowing) is very far from knowing that it is false (the branch of the standard you appear to be appealing to argue a lack of right-to-rely.) So, I don't think the argument, as you've made it, is convincing.

As far as (1).... making a web request is NOT a user saying they clicked an ad. That is an inference that the website owner is making, not a statement the user is making. The user never agreed to that.

This would be like if you are a dairy farmer and you notice people who buy cookies usually buy milk, so to make things simple you make an agreement to pay a store 25 cents for every cookie they sell (because you want to incentivize them to sell more cookies and therefore more milk). You couldn't then accuse a customer of fraud when they buy cookies but not milk. They never agreed to always buy milk when they buy cookies, that was just an assumption you made.

> making a web request is NOT a user saying they clicked an ad.

Whatever the merits of that argument might be in the general case, using an extension which expressly advertises its function to include falsifying clicks to mislead ad networks makes it hard to make the argument in that context.

Right, but just because I know the inference that a 3rd party is making, am I under some responsibility to not change my behavior? I don't think I have some legal or moral responsibility to not troll someone watching me.

Since the packets are being sent to your computer, I consider the situation analogous to a someone coming to your home and then you replying to them with bogus information. Maybe that still fits this definition of fraud, in which case I would say I don't believe such fraud should be legally suable. I think the users property rights of their computer trumps the advertiser's complaint about fraud.

The distinction is automation versus manual process. If you manually reply with bogus information, then your illustration works. When you automate the process, there's no intervention on your part. Ad blocking is fine with me, but when you intentionally click on ads in an automated way, this becomes click fraud. There's a certain level of click fraud that is tolerated by Google, but AdNaseum takes it too far IMO.

You're joking right? You obviously never automated bogus reply on the phone answering machine for one or the other reason. If you don't pick a phone at home and answering machine takes it, are you comiting a fraud because it is automated and telling everyone that you're not home.

The intervention on my part is writing/compiling/installing/actively using the automation.

You could make that argument for any bot, but in the eyes of Google or myself, I see it as click fraud. I think Google made the right choice here. If you disagree with surveillance and want privacy, there are other tools available such as Ghostery and µBlock. They provide what you want without being retaliatory.

When I manually click an ad for a political candidate or party that I despise, am I committing fraud?

(Not saying that I do that, of course. Entirely hypothetical.)

Seems like point 1 would not be satisfied, because you are actually clicking the ad. I suppose someone could argue that you're still deceiving them about your intent but it seems like quite a stretch.

Is this analysis independent on whether I'm the party who gets paid for the ad clicks? It makes sense to me that if I make someone sign a thing saying I get money per click, and then go ahead and simulate clicks, I'm defrauding them, but if I'm just some random guy, why's it on me to play nice with their method of detecting clicks?

> (3) Intent to deceive the party by making the false representation (that is the extension's stated purpose!);

I think you are deceiving everyone that you are indeed an attorney.

A very large part of the globe does not follow common law.

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