Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Dallas Firm Sued By Microsoft Over Click Fraud

Dallas-based online publishing firm RedOrbit and president Eric Ralls have been sued by Microsoft, in a lawsuit that alleges that RedOrbit and an un-named defendants have been "click laundering" online advertising on the site, in a scheme to defraud advertisers of hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to Microsoft, it has filed two lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against RedOrbit and the unidentified defendants in the case, after the firm saw "dramatic" and irregular growth in click traffic on sites within its Microsoft adCenter network. Microsoft said that "click laundering" uses malware programs and other techniques to avoid fraud detection systems, making it appear that invalid ad clicks actually are originating from legitimate sources.