Law Times

PAGE 14 FOCUS June 8, 2009 • Law Times Report: Canada a top click-fraud offender BY GLENN KAUTH Law Times C anada is a major source of pay-per-click fraud that rips off online advertisers, a U.S.-based organization claims. In its latest report for the fi rst quarter of the year, Click Foren- sics Inc. singled out Canada as being a top click-fraud off ender among countries outside of the United States. Overall, the por- tion of invalid clicks declined to 13.8 per cent, down from 17.1 per cent in the preceding quar- ter. During that period, Canada accounted for 7.4 per cent of all click fraud originating from out- side the United States, making us Encyclopedia of Forms, Eleventh Edition O'BRIEN'S Computers and Information Technology, Division X All of the most up-to-date Canadian forms and precedents you need for carrying on your IT legal practice or business operation the biggest foreign contributor, according to Click Forensics Inc. Essentially, click fraud hap- pens when someone clicks on ads in order to make the adver- tiser, whose fee to a website cre- ator stems from the number of people who view its content, pay more. So, the publisher of a website might, for example, repeatedly click — or have some- one else click — a banner ad post- ed online in a bid to earn more revenue. In the United States, the practice has sparked class-action lawsuits against companies such as Google, which earns ma- jor revenue from pay-per-click arrangements with advertisers. Nevertheless, while click fraud Order the online version and get the print for FREE With the Internet version easily search for agreements and clauses, customize and integrate them into documents. Compiled by one of the country's leading IT practitioners, this service delivers all of the appropriate and up-to-date forms of agreements to help you conduct your IT business. It also provides checklists and optional clauses that assist in quickly customizing the agreements to your interests. Updated regularly, benefit from material on: • identifying and protecting intellectual property • requests for proposals (RFPs) particularly for government-related procurement • software as a service and managed operations • online purchasing and other types of Internet transactions • database and content licensing • warranty, support and maintenance services • Source Code Escrow • a compendium of IT contract definitions and boiler plate • security and privacy issues • agency and manufacturing representative agreements • outsourcing as well as maintenance support and professional agreements There's no need to look anywhere else. ORDER your copy today Looseleaf & binders (4) with Internet access • $515 Releases invoiced separately (1-2 yr) • P/C 0886030000 Vol. 1/2/3/4 ISBN 0-88804-267-1/358-9/436-4/467-9 is happening here, Canada has yet to see much litigation around it. But in one case, Findology Interactive Media Inc. took on Revquest Technologies Inc. over the latter's failure to pay for al- legedly bogus clicks. Findology off ered a pay-per-click search en- gine service in which advertisers would generate a sponsored link to their website whenever an In- ternet surfer entered purchased key words. If the user actually selected the link, the advertiser would have to pay Findology. In this case, Revquest acted as an intermediary for several advertis- ers and would turn over 60 per cent of whatever it earned from its customers to Findology. In court submissions, Rev- quest argued it had performed a post-click analysis and con- cluded a portion of the traffi c it had been paying for was fraudu- lent. So, it withheld $27,000 in payments to Findology, which disputed the claims and sued for $25,000 in the small claims court of Nova Scotia. In 2007, adjudicator Michael For a 30-day, no-risk evaluation call: 1.800.263.2037 Canada Law Book is a Division of The Cartwright Group Ltd. Prices subject to change without notice, to applicable taxes and shipping & handling. O'BRIEN'S COMPUTERS (LT 1-3x4).indd 1 LT0608 6/3/09 9:36:50 AM Outsourcing Transactions: A Practical Guide Richard Austin, Chief Legal Counsel of EDS Canada Past-President of the Canadian IT Law Association Negotiate and draft better outsourcing agreements for all parties involved With a special emphasis on technology, and a variety of useful precedent agreements, this service expertly guides you through each stage of the outsourcing process. From planning to negotiation, to implementation, the authors rely on their years of experience to ensure the book meets the needs of today's outsourcing practitioner. Create win-win relationships with authoritative insight on: • the RFP process • pricing and payment • benchmarking and its alternatives • implementation, governance and administration • privacy issues • exit strategies • issues in Eastern Europe, UK and Quebec • cross-border transactions and offshore outsourcing . . . and more Continually updated, new chapters include: • bankruptcy and insolvency issues • insurance issues • mismanagement of outsourcing transactions • outsourcing in the UK Outsourcing involves many areas of law such as employment, pension, tax, and IT. This looseleaf service includes chapters on each of these subjects written by experts in those fields. Order your copy today! Looseleaf & binder • $189 • Releases invoiced separately (1-2/yr) P/C 0146030000 • ISBN 0-88804-456-9 O'Hara ruled in favour of the claimant in Findology Interactive Media Inc. v. Revquest Technolo- gies Inc. In doing so, he noted that while the contract between the two companies authorized Revquest to withhold payment for clicks it believes are bogus, it failed to provide evidence to back up the allegations. He therefore ordered Revquest to pay Findol- ogy $25,000 plus costs. Nevertheless, litigation around click fraud continues, especially south of the border. While in 2006 Google agreed to pay as much as $90 million to settle a class-action lawsuit there, it faces a new challenge related to its Ad- Words service. Th e case, fi led by California-based RK West Inc. as a class action, focuses on what are called parked domains, which are websites with no other content besides ads. Essentially, after bid- ding for keywords that generate ads through Google searches, ad- vertisers then have their content go up on the parked domains, a service for which they also pay per click. "Google does this despite the fact that ads placed on parked do- mains are a constant source of in- valid clicks," the claim fi led with the United States District Court in northern California states. "By charging for clicks in a single bulk, generic 'parked domain' cat- egory, advertisers have no way to distinguish between valid and in- valid clicks from parked domains. Nevertheless, Google charges for all clicks from parked domains, regardless of validity." Of course, the good news is that despite lingering con- cerns over click fraud, the Click Forensics report indicates the For a 30-day, no-risk evaluation call: 1.800.263.2037 Canada Law Book is a Division of The Cartwright Group Ltd. Prices subject to change without notice, to applicable taxes and shipping & handling. www.lawtimesnews.com Kyer_Outsourcing (LT 1-3x4).indd 1 6/3/09 9:48:50 AM LT0608 problem may be under control with the latest numbers indicat- ing a slight decline in the portion of bogus activities over last year. Still, it noted that with scripted attacks using programs as simple as JavaScript on the increase, ad- vertisers should be vigilant about monitoring their traffi c. LT A Practical Guide is so valuable." relationships. It is for this reason that Outsourcing Transactions: lose" transactions, but rather about "win-win" "It is not about "win- Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP Edited by: C. Ian Kyer and John Beardwood Annually updated and in its 11th edition! Editor: Louis H. Milrad

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