Click Fraud Punishment?

Our web site has recently become a victim of AdWords click fraud. I noticed this nearly two weeks ago, investigated the perpetrator's IP address, and immediately reported each instance to Google over the course of the next week. Google has been very thorough, and prompt in their investigation of the fraud; and refunded our money for all clicks from the clicker's IP address.

I am 99% sure of who committed the fraud. I know her personally, as I worked for her for nearly five years. I am now in business for myself, and have become one of her online competitors. I know for a fact she used to fraudulently click another competitor's ads - ALL THE TIME. At that time, I didn't know what AdWords was, and wasn't sure what she meant when she would tell me that she had been up at 3:00 am clicking on their ads because she couldn't sleep.

On that front, I took my web stat reports with the fraudulent activity, and my prior knowledge of the fraud she committed against the other competitor to local law enforcement, who are now obtaining a subpoena to present to the user's ISP, so we may further investigate and identify the computer / person perpetrating the fraud. I had enough circumstantial reasoning for them to pursue the issue with us. Maybe this will set the tone for would-be fraudster's out there...

The fraud has subsequently stopped, but only after I posted the user's IP address on my web site, telling them that they had been detected and reported - and that a subpoena is being issued for further investigation.

The person, who I believe committed the fraud has had HIGH rankings in Google for a few years now - I'm talking #1 to #5 on tons of very competitive terms. Her business, which she runs by herself, from her home, is very successful. If it was her, she was purposefully trying to STEAL MONEY FROM ME, which upsets me because I am a new business. It's unfair, and if Google's system had not filtered out most of the clicks, she would have essentially stolen $150 - $300 from my business in five days.

Does anyone else think that if someone is PROVEN to have committed "competitor click fraud", that their site should be banned from Google? I think if Google punished sites, even for 30 days, by banning them for such unethical activity, that click fraud rates would decrease in a hurry. Also, when the information from the user's ISP becomes available, and their identity is revealed, would it be unethical for me to post the business' name on my blog, and on the internet in general? When the records are released by court order, they become public knowledge, right? What would stop me from writing and submitting my story to online new feeds, identifying the perpetrator? Should I do this? Would you do it?

 

I'm impressed that you are on your way to stopping someone like this... but im in no position to advise on the other things

 

Hi Tara,

Regarding your competitor: I would stay in silence, go to the Court first and tell your story after and if you win.

regarding Adsense punishment: They has their own system to detect click fraud and ban fraudulent sites. But if they has their doubt they will not ban the site.

 

Thanks for your thoughts...

Micromag, I am referring to a web site being banned from Google's index; not an AdSense site being banned from being able to serve AdSense ads. I realize that a site can be banned from using AdSense if fraud is detected therein, but I was just wondering if anyone (besides myself) thinks a web site owned by a perpetrator of click fraud against a competitor should be banned from Google's index, so their site is no longer found in SERPs.

Thanks again!

 

Good on you for taking this to the level you have. What you have explained is one of the least sophisticated methods for engaging in click fraud. She obviously wasn't using any sort of proxy to hide her clicks as you said you could follow her IP address. What concerns me about this story is that Google didn't nail all the clicks to begin with. Why did it take you to waste your valuable time chasing this quite rudimentary form of click fraud down?

As for your comments about banning the site, well it might be a good solution, but I think it would be difficult to implement. I would imagine that most click fraudsters don't have websites, which is why they often waste their time clicking on ads. It would only be the competitive style of click fraud that this would be effective for. But then, it would be difficult to make the connection to what sites they actually own.

As for what you can do after legal action? Well that is something a lawyer would have to advise you on.

Anyway, well done in getting the refund. Good work.

 

Hi Tara,

I'm glad to hear that you're pursuing this issue, and I wish you the best. My feeling is that anyone who has committed confirmed click fraud using one of Google's programs should be banned from all of their programs, for life. If a conventional business caught an employee stealing from the company coffers, or an advertising agency caught a client committing fraud, what would they do? The company would fire the employee, with no hope of re-employment, and the ad agency would ban their customer from doing business with them in the future. In both cases, they'd more than likely pursue legal action. In my opinion, business online should be no different.

As for the additional steps you're considering, I'd advise you to get the go-ahead from your attorney before doing anything related to this matter. US laws are loaded with loopholes, and the last thing you want to do is jeopardize your case.

All the Best,
Sam

 

Thanks to you all for your thoughts...

ClickSentinel, I should have been more clear; Google actually DID filter out the clicks from this user's IP address. I continued to file reports after each incident, so I have record of my contact with Google. They were unable to filter out approximately $40 worth of clicks (out of about $150-$300 in clicks) because the person knew that he/she had been caught for a large amount of clicks in a few days time; so he/she started to spread their clicks out throughout the whole day - two clicks here, one click there, so it didn't look so suspicious. These are the clicks that Google refunded in the end. The large amounts of clicks before that had already been taken care of by their filtering system. Google have been great throughout. As a matter of fact, they went back into my account just yesterday, re-investigated the IP address one last time, and found $5 in clicks that they didn't catch before. They sent me e-mail notification saying that they wanted to make sure they had taken care of the issue with this fraud, and that they had found a few clicks that looked suspicous, and had refunded those!

Thanks again!

 

Just wondering, why did she use the same IP to click on your ads because she must know they would not be billed by Google.

And if she 's using proxies, its gonna be hard to have any solid evidence that she is behind this click fraud case.

By the way, that person is EVIL. Hope someday she'll get what she deserves.

 

Fortunately, for me, she is a technical moron. She wasn't smart enough to figure out that Google would not charge for this activity; she did TRY to wise up and only click five or six times a day, thinking she'd be able to trick us all, but her IP had already been reported numerous times to Google - we were already watching for her to click again, or to try changing her click pattern.

Our evidence is pretty solid. She can be traced as the owner/user of the IP address, which is a Time Warner Roadrunner IP, a non-business Roadrunner account(because she works from home, she apparently doesn't think she should have Roadrunner Business Class, which would have given me her identity already).

You are right. She is EVIL.

 

Now is possible to block a specific IP address:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=3491985

 

It's possible to block a specific IP address, but it's very easy to change that. And you won't get rid of the fraudster this way.

 

All depends on how technical and determined the other person is.