Indictment against click-fraudster quashed

Johannes Beus
One incident in 2004 caused a large media-echo: a man alleged that he had developed a software which could cheat Google's AdSense-system, which had just opened at the time, and generate fraudulent clicks without being detected by Google. He stated that he had operated test-sites which made more than 3.000 US-dollar in revenues. Armed with these statements, he tried to sell this software to Google – first for 60.000, then for 100.000 and 150.000. He threatened that, otherwise, he would sell the software the the 100 largest spammers.
Google got the FBI involved. They listened in on the conversations between Google and the blackmailer from an adjacent room and took him into custody a short while thereafter. He was put on trial and was found guilty by a jury of his peers. All that was missing was a sentence. Now, Businessweek is reporting that the proceeding has been stayed by the prosecution as of the 22nd of November 2006 – no justification has been given. Google is also not commenting on the case either.
Quite mysteriously, especially against the backdrop of clickfraud being one of the largest threats to Google's business model which has the potential of causing some serious problems for the stock-market-star.
Johannes Beus - on Tue (12/05/2006) at 12:05 PM

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