zlacker

>>yuvada+(OP)
At the risk of downvotes: Is anyone really surprised?

AdNauseam is silently clicking ads. This directly costs Google money. Google happens to control the extension web store for their own browser. Removing it from the store really isn't that bad. Uninstalling it from existing browsers as malware? A little more malicious, but I would still consider it self defense.

There is even a method to install it directly[1] which AFAIK Google has not blocked.

Granted, if Google were not both running the browser and the ad network, these actions probably wouldn't have been taken. But the whole attitude that this is some sort of tyrannical thing is a little over the top.

1. https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/Install-AdNauseam-on...

>>Spoom+ga
People should still be giving Google shit for decisions like that, even if they're not surprised.

>>ben0x5+sb
If you look at it as the extension performs fraud, then what Google did is completely defensible. And I feel that it does. You may not feel that way exactly, but it's certainly justifiable that the extensions actions defraud the ad network.

>>fryguy+si
Fraud? If a user wants to automate his browser to click all ads encountered as he surfs, that's fraud?

>>mattle+sj
Fraud is a poor word choice, because it is a legal term. There must be a better word out there.

>>em3rge+bl
Attorney here! (But not your attorney and not giving legal advice -- seek qualified counsel in your state if you need assistance.)

Sending automated clicks to ads arguably meets all the elements of common-law fraud:

(1) A false representation of fact (that the user clicked on the ad);

(2) Knowledge of the falsity (by the user installing and using the extension);

(3) Intent to deceive the party by making the false representation (that is the extension's stated purpose!);

(4) Reasonable reliance by the innocent party (by believing the "click" was real and intended);

(5) Actual loss suffered (by paying the owner/operator of the page containing the ad)

In my view, therefore, "fraud" is an applicable term.

>>otterl+Fp
As far as (1).... making a web request is NOT a user saying they clicked an ad. That is an inference that the website owner is making, not a statement the user is making. The user never agreed to that.

This would be like if you are a dairy farmer and you notice people who buy cookies usually buy milk, so to make things simple you make an agreement to pay a store 25 cents for every cookie they sell (because you want to incentivize them to sell more cookies and therefore more milk). You couldn't then accuse a customer of fraud when they buy cookies but not milk. They never agreed to always buy milk when they buy cookies, that was just an assumption you made.