I'm not familiar with Chinese or Thai law to know what is legal or not, but I would assume there is some kind of fraud. Especially for clicking on advertisements.
That would be when the company doing the clicking is profiting off of it, which in this case they are.
I dont know, but I doubt intention to buy is the deciding factor. I would think that it becomes illegal when you are misrepresenting traffic to an advertiser. Especially if its a pay per click contract, and the group doing the clicking is acting on behalf of the company getting paid.
It might be pedantic to point that out... but intent matters.
[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/
GP says "Click without intend to buy" -- Wow, that sounds like mis clicks could be a CRIME!
I cannot be too bothered with people gaming the sleazy business that advertising is.
Intent can surely make something a crime, that wouldn't be punishable otherwise. Giving someone with a peanut allergy something with peanuts in it is not a crime, unless you knew they had the allergy and intended to hurt them. In some states it's illegal to intentionally expose someone to HIV, but it wouldnt be illegal to expose them if you didn't know you had it. If you slip and fall at a store you can likely sue for damages, but it would be a crime if you intended to do it.
I cannot be too bothered with people gaming the sleazy business that advertising is.
Yeah, I don't feel bad for any of the players involved in that world.
I hire you to browse around my site clicking on ads to generate revenue for me -> crime.
If the ad networks care is another story. They make money either way on the short term :)
Is it to defraud someone out of a marketing fee by pretending that your adverts are creating more engagement than they actually are?
Then that's fraud, isn't it?
The law looks at how a reasonable person would interpret what you are doing and what your intent is. It doesn't work on a 'clicking adverts without intending to buy is illegal' basis. So many people here misunderstand that.
In western common law practice, sure. But elsewhere?
Whether it's actually illegal or not is another matter, and depends on circumstances and jurisdiction.
But if you're the same party displaying the ads, or working for them, then yes - you're intentionally defrauding the ad company.
1. You create an AdWords account or something where you can be paid to put ads on your site.
2. You have tons of employees with different devices, probably on a range of VPNs or tor circuits.
3. They click ads on your site over and over and over again.
Just a hunch. I know this sort of thing is strictly forbidden in Google's terms and can certainly be considered fraudulent depending on who's asking.
The host presumably has some kind of contract they agreed to in exchange for getting ads and getting paid.