Last month, advertisers filed a new lawsuit in Pennsylvania seeking class-action status against Google for overcharging them. On the wake of this, the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are investigating click fraud.

Actually, online click frauds have taken a new shape over the last couple of years where websites having either Google ads, Yahoo! ads etc are inviting people from all across the world to click on their ads in return for a cut in the revenues earned from the ads.

Google and Yahoo! handle over 70 percent of all Web searches in the US together have click fraud control technology that identifies suspicious clicks. However, it is no fool-proof and the industry is skeptical whether the third party online ad tech providers such as Google are honest themselves.

Things are so bad now that the research firm Yankee Group concluded recently that in the absence of more aggressive measures to validate clicks, fraud could undermine the businesses of earning revenues from online ads and not only publishers, but companies such as Google and Yahoo! can go burst in this most lucrative of money spinners. So far, click fraud control measures have been short of any significance.

The online ad revenues have been sustaining many businesses and the Web 2.0 thingy. The viability calculations are made with the view on how revenues will turn out to be through ads. The multi-billion dollar question is now how this element of massive frauds is tackled.

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