Microsoft 'click fraud' case still awaiting court date
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Updated: July 15, 2009 2:54 PM
No hearing date has yet been set in the Microsoft civil lawsuit that names three Richmond residents, who are accused of committing 'click fraud' to benefit their World of Warcraft website.
David Bateman, lawyer for Washington State-based software giant Microsoft, said nothing substantive has happened in the U.S. District Court case filed against Richmond's Eric Chuen Lam, his brother Gordon Lam, and their mother Melanie Ma Lan Suen.
The trio live on Jack Bell Drive and Microsoft is seeking damages of upwards of $750,000.
Click fraud refers to when a person, automated script or computer program imitates a legitimate web surfer without having actual interest in the target of the click.
Advertisers pay Microsoft for advertising space on the results page that pops up whenever a web surfer conducts a search through Microsoft's search engine.
The Lams are accused of having conspired to fraudulently click on these paid ads belonging to competitors of their World of Warcraft website.
Each click on these paid ads results in an advertiser being charged, and the Lams are accused of having engaged in a widespread scheme that would exhaust their competitors advertising budget. And as a result, the Lams would benefit whenever their ads for Super Continental US and UMGE would pop up, but at a much cheaper rate. This would generate more web traffic to the Lam's website.
The Lams allegedly also operated an auto insurance website.
The scheme was uncovered, according to court documents, in March of 2008, when complaints arose from advertisers in the auto insurance industry.
Microsoft investigated and found that Eric Lam stood to uniquely benefit from the scam.
Microsoft issued more than $1.5 million in credits to auto insurance and World of Warcraft advertisers as a result, it claims in court documents.
The Lams and their mother are alleged to have profited more than $250,000 from the scheme.
Bateman referred questions to Microsoft when asked how Microsoft hopes to collect any judgement it might receive from a U.S. court, considering the Lams live in Richmond.
—Martin van den Hemel
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