Purposely Clicking on Political Ads - Legal?

I think there are MILLIONS who are disgusted. Imagine if they found out they could actually do something that made a difference.

Because they are unemployed and disgruntled?


A populist movement would be quite different than bot detection.

It has to do with economics. There are actual paid armies of clickers in low-income parts of the world, that actually do spend all day clicking particular ads that they have been instructed to click.

It is probably not illegal or easy to establish intent. For example, someone could be "watching for changes" to the website. There is no contract between google and the user, except that google has the right to refuse service.

An individual clicking on a link to visit legal content is within their rights, even if done repeatedly. Google also does not clearly make an explicit statement that repeatedly clicking on ads is wrong or unacceptable behavior.

Google has link above the ads that says "Why these ads?". There is nothing there saying that clicking on them repeatedly is against their policy, nor do they talk about cost to the advertiser. Because the cost to the advertiser is not known. In some cases, Google provides ads for charities, but does not clearly differentiate them from paying ads.

There is risk every advertiser takes when placing ads, and there must be a certain responsibility placed on the advertiser and the provider. Advertiser's will use systems that benefit them most, and if Google cannot provide a system that is valuable, then people will use other mediums and methods.

It could also be said that fast forwarding through a commercial causes harm to the advertiser, or use of ad blockers causes harm to the advertiser. In both cases there is an intent. If a consumer believes repeatedly clicking on ads might result in less ads being shown to them, that would be a motivation in this case.

But does a consumer not have a right to respond to advertising by clicking on it whenever they wish? Or is it a one-way street in which the ad provider can force the consumer to see ads, yet the consumer is forced into a behavior desired by the advertiser?

What if the consumer loves google and is trying to help them by clicking on ads more often? Is that acceptable behavior?

Would there be anything illegal about organizing people to purposely click on ads that would use up the budget of the opposing candidate?

Using a computer to commit click fraud is a felony in California.

Since we kinda have a rule in the WF against discussing ways to implement illegal activity, a mod is probably going to remove this thread.

fLufF
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Well considering they're not omniscient, no, I don't think they have.

But, this idea definitely isn't something novel that they wouldn't have thought of already, sure.

My first reaction to this idea is that it's fraud but perhaps I'm wrong...

And I am talking about threats to the PPC business model used by Google which could harm someone's ability to make money or popularize their political campaign.

Another ethical dilemma...

What if more consumers were made aware that advertisers are charged based on whether or not they click on the ads?

Then say they are presented with a choice between two different links pointing to the same company or candidate, one organic and one PPC.

Is there anything wrong with consumers developing a "desire" to charge the advertiser or campaign for their right to display the ad to them by choosing to click the ad?

I think there are some questions here about the viability of the Google PPC model that Google would very much like to make sure are not discussed. They don't want consumers to know there is a charge per click, because they display know information about this to the consumer on the SERP pages or the "Why these Ads?" pages.

Is there anything malicious about spreading the work that it costs money when a consumer clicks on an ad? I personally think consumers should be more educated about the details, and should not be kept in the dark about it. Then consumers can make more educated choices about how they want to respond to advertising, including the possibility they might avoid clicking on ads too.