Comment by rvnx

Comment by rvnx 13 hours ago

56 replies

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It's also illegal in many jurisdictions (e.g. in the US, viewed as a scheme to defraud advertisers by generating invalid clicks that cause financial harm, by depleting their budgets and push them to spend for fake traffic), but in practice it's way easier to just blacklist that IP / user.

The big networks filter such traffic, the small networks benefit from it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/legal/comments/1pq6kgp/is_it_legal_...

You may also get accidentally get your own website blacklisted or moved to a lower RPM tier, or provoke shadow-ban websites that you like to visit, or... generate more ad revenue for them.

Terretta 13 hours ago

Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face.

Any jurisdiction where this is supposedly illegal, it hasn't been court tested seriously.*

Per your link: "What you're describing is essentially the extension AdNauseam. So far they have not had any legal troubles, but they technically could." That stance or an assertion it's not illegal is consistent throughout the thread, provided you aren't clicking your own ads.

"The industry" thinks you shouldn't be allowed to fast forward your own VCR through an ad either. They can take a flying .. lesson.

* Disclaimer: I don't know if that's true, but it sounds true.

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  • y-curious 13 hours ago

    Telling me this is illegal has made me want to download it more. “IT IS ILLEGAL TO ATTACK THIS NONCONSENSUAL SPAM SIR”

    Reply View 2 replies
    • Tor3 7 hours ago

      Some years ago I was by chance listening to a radio program about advertising. They interviewed a marketing guy and he insisted that it was illegal for you to visit the bathroom or the kitchen while the ad was running (on TV or on the radio). Completely nuts.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • dylan604 6 hours ago

        That reminds me of the time I was flipping through TV channels and stopped in on TBN to see what color Jan's hair was going to be. Instead, I found Paul preaching about how anyone watching his programming and NOT sending him donations was stealing from him.

        Reply View 0 replies
  • gruez 13 hours ago

    >Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face.

    No, the illegal-ness doesn't come from the clicking, it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. That's also why filling out a credit card application isn't illegal, but filling out the same credit card application with phony details is.

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    • _factor 12 hours ago

      The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet.

      You’re not defrauding anyone if you have your extension click all ads in the background and make a personalized list for you that you can choose to review.

      The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.

      Reply View 5 replies
      • gruez 12 hours ago

        >The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet.

        How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever?

        >The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.

        You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference

        Reply View 4 replies
    • rvnx 13 hours ago

      Even one of the users here above mentions the malicious intent:

      > I hate advertisers so I'm gonna get back at them by making them pay more.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • Gabrys1 12 hours ago

      What if someone unironically wants to automatically click all the ads to support the websites they visit

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      • billyp-rva 12 hours ago

        You'd be doing way more harm than good. The battle between ad networks and unscrupulous website owners using bots to fake ad clicks has been going on forever.

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      • freitasm 9 hours ago

        Ads pay in different forms. Some pay per click (PPC), some pay per thousand impressions (CPM).

        Clicking with the intention of helping doesn't help. Only clicking with genuine interest helps.

        Reply View 1 reply
        • c22 6 hours ago

          I don't think the question was about whether this would actually help the advertisers. (I suspect it was rhetorical.) Of course the defense will now be harder to execute for anyone who reads this thread.

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      • rvnx 12 hours ago

        Some sort of Robinhood of advertising, taking from the big, to give to the small

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    • bilekas 7 hours ago

      > it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone.

      You're defrauding nobody. People purchase visibility and clicks when they purchase advertising. not conversions or sales.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • gruez 6 hours ago

        >People purchase visibility and clicks when they purchase advertising. not conversions or sales.

        Again, you're ignoring intent in all of this. It's not illegal to default on a loan, or even to refuse to pay it back (eg. bankruptcy), but it is illegal to take out a loan with the specific intent to not pay it back (eg. if you know you're planning on declare bankruptcy right afterwards).

        Reply View 0 replies
  • WarmWash 12 hours ago

    >Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face.

    To be fair, you put it in your own face, by visiting the site...

    Reply View 3 replies
    • rvnx 12 hours ago

      I mean, (not to you, as we go in the same direction, in general), just block it.

      The goal of Adnauseam was to hurt Google, and other big adnetworks, from what I understand.

      By blocking:

          -> Advertiser is not harmed
    -> For the adnetwork: No ad revenue
    -> Publisher is not harmed
    -> Pages load faster
      --> Google is earning less (if this is part of your ideological fight) and you get rewarded with a better experience, and you are legally safe

      ==

      With fake clicks:

          -> Advertiser is harmed
    -> Publisher is harmed
    -> Adnetwork is okayish with the situation (to a certain point)
      -> You hurt websites and products that you like (or would statistically like)

      --> Google is accidentally earning more revenue (at least temporarily, until you get shadow-banned), your computer / page loads slows down and you enter a legally gray area.

      (+ the side-note below: clicking on every ads leak your browsing history because in the URL there is a unique tracking ID that connects to the page you are viewing)

      Reply View 2 replies
      • freitasm 9 hours ago

        "-> Publisher is not harmed"

        How? Publishers do need revenue and this can deprive them of this income.

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        • rvnx 6 hours ago

          Fair enough. I took the principle that revenue = 0 if no conversion, but in reality this is not true at all.

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  • direwolf20 13 hours ago

    You're not clicking the button, you're sending a known fraudulent request saying the ad was clicked, when the ad was not clicked

    Reply View 8 replies
    • sharperguy 13 hours ago

      I still wonder about that. I don't have a contract with the advertiser to provide genuine data back about what ads I've clicked and what I haven't. The website operator does have such a contract and so cannot hire a bot farm to spam click the ads.

      If it's something that's been held up in court already then of course I have to accept it, but I can't say the reason seems immediately intuitive.

      Reply View 6 replies
      • direwolf20 11 hours ago

        There's a very general law that says something about using a computer to cause money to move

        Reply View 0 replies
      • gruez 12 hours ago

        >I don't have a contract with the advertiser to provide genuine data back about what ads I've clicked and what I haven't.

        Charges of fraud doesn't require a contract to be in place. That's the whole point of criminal law, it's so that you don't need to add a "don't screw me over" clause to every interaction you make.

        Reply View 4 replies
    • dsr_ 4 hours ago

      An AI agent did it. Obviously I can't be expected to watch over all the things it does.

      Reply View 0 replies
bmandale 12 hours ago

click fraud consists of the person who runs a website themselves clicking, running bots to click, paying someone else to click, etc ads on their own website. it becomes fraud first because they have contractually agreed not to do that, and second because they are materially benefiting from it. an unaligned third party clicking (etc) on ads has neither of those conditions being true, and hence isn't fraud or otherwise illegal.

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  • rvnx 12 hours ago

    Doubtful.

    If you intentionally loop-download large files or fake requests on websites that you don't like, in order to create big CDN charges for them, then what ?

    Without reaching the threshold of Denial of Service, just sneakily growing it.

    Nobody benefits, except for the weird idea of the pleasure of harming people, still illegal.

    Reply View 4 replies
    • infecto 11 hours ago

      You are just wrong on many levels and keep repeating the same mistruths.

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    • reaperducer 7 hours ago

      Doubtful

      Not doubtful at all. He literally laid out the definition of click fraud for you.

      As someone who ran ads on web sites as far back as 1995, that has been the term the industry has used forever.

      Replying with a dismissive "doubtful" demonstrates that you don't know what you're talking about.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • rvnx an hour ago

        Yes, doubtful it is not fraud, just because you didn’t sign a contract does not prevent it from being fraud.

        And it is fine to use the terms click fraud when you conduct artificial clicks with the intent:

        Examples:

        https://integralads.com/insider/what-is-click-fraud/#:~:text...

        One of the top leading company of traffic filtering is literally using these words to describe that.

        Other users even 10 years ago:

        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13328628

        + sources from court:

        > The opinion states: “click fraud” can occur when “either a (natural) person, automated script, or computer program, sometimes referred to as a `bot,’ simulates the click activity of a legitimate user by clicking on the Program Data displayed, but without having an actual interest in its subject matter or content.”

        Etc

        Reply View 0 replies
infecto 13 hours ago

Wrong. There is no law saying you cannot click every link on a website within your browser. It would not only be impossible to prove but also entirely wrong interpretation of existing laws.

Now if you had an AdWords account and ran a botnet that visited your property and clicked ads, that’s fraud.

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  • pixl97 12 hours ago

    >It would not only be impossible to prove

    I mean if you had an extension that did it I don't see why it would be impossible. And with an extension for that purpose it shows intent.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • infecto 11 hours ago

      Back up a bit. AdNauseam and similar tools are not illegal. The only real avenues would be violation of ToS, fraud, computer abuse or similar. For an individual running this on their home PC for their own use it would be a real challenge for anyone of any size to prove harm.

      Now like I already said, if you are running a botnet clicking on your ads that is entirely a different story.

      So tell us what does having the extension installed prove?

      Reply View 0 replies
Larrikin 12 hours ago

You're all over this thread spreading misinformation. AdNauseam has been around since 2014. It is specifically banned in the Chrome store so Google knows of it's existence. If you check the wikipedia page you'll see that they have landed in the press and taken multiple actions against the extension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdNauseam

Usually when it's brought up people say it doesn't work or try to spread fear that it is illegal. Google banning them but taking no action otherwise indicates to me and the thousands who use it that it is in fact effective and Google has no other recourse other than their control over the most popular browser.

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reaperducer 7 hours ago

It's also illegal in many jurisdictions (e.g. in the US

Never in the history of HN has a [citation] been so [needed].

And from an actual lawyer, not just some rando cosplaying M&A in his mom's basement.

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snarfy 6 hours ago

A "scheme to defraud advertisers", how infuriating.

Advertisers are stealing my time and attention. Why is this not illegal also then?

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pbronez 13 hours ago

Seriously? What laws catch it out?

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  • rvnx 13 hours ago

    You deliberate harm and financial damage using a computer bot. Almost all countries have provisions where you can be sued for any type of damage you cause and be asked to repair it (a minima at the civil level).

    Big ones detect it, so they don't care to sue. Small ones benefit, so they don't sue.

    This is your main protection, there is nothing to squeeze from a single guy. Even if you get him to pay you back the fraud, then what ? It costs more in legal fees.

    Still, it's such an odd concept to self-inflict yourself such; it's way better to just block the ads than to be tagged as a bot and get Recaptcha-ed or Turnstiled more frequently.

    Reply View 6 replies
    • malfist 12 hours ago

      How did I cause financial damage? I didn't charge anybody anything. I didn't pay anybody anything. I agreed to no terms and conditions

      Reply View 5 replies
      • rvnx 12 hours ago

        With your logic this is legal:

        > One public Firebase file. One day. $98,000. How it happened and how it could happen to you.

        https://www.reddit.com/r/googlecloud/comments/1kg9icb/one_pu...

        "It's just a script that makes a loop, I didn't charge anybody anything, I didn't pay anybody anything. I agreed to no terms and conditions".

        It's a very harmful practice to intentionally try to hurt companies, when you can just block what you don't like.

        Reply View 4 replies