The New York TImes reports Microsoft has filed suit against Eric Lam, Gordon Lam and Melanie Suen, of Vancouver, British Columbia. The suit comes after a year of investigative work by Microsoft in tracking down reports of click fraud.

According to the NY Times, these defendants allegedly:

Microsoft said it found a pattern of click fraud on its search pages, where lists ranked by relevance and popularity appear alongside a handful of paid results. Advertisers bid on what they will pay to appear in the paid-search results for certain keywords. The more an advertiser pays, the higher they are in that list, and advertisers usually pay for each click on their ad.

Why is Microsoft doing this? Maybe to send a warning to those who are involved in click fraud to stop doing it or else. Or maybe Microsoft wants more buzz about their search ad network, adCenter?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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