How embarassing for the person who named this event — “Internet “Click Fraud” Tricks: Domain Name Tasting, Joy Riding, Parking, Kiting and Other Dirty Tricks -a Webcast & In-Person Briefing.” Unfortunately the ITAA is a powerful trade group, members including Motorola and Microsoft.

As Frank Schilling points out in his domain name blog, these guys are up to no good.

Cross eyed confusion like this opens up big doors for lawyers and snake oil “anti-fraud” salesmen. Remember the whole Yahoo click fraud lawsuit? Checkmate Strategic Group pocketed $5 million, Yahoo had their click fraud slate wiped clean not only of fraudulant clicks but also “unwanted clicks, unqualified clicks, improper clicks, non-converting clicks, inadequately converting clicks.”

I can understand and accept confusions with all of this jargon. Its hard to keep track of. However, I get pissed when the word fraud is casually slung around legitimate online business. Last time it was an AOL blogger who called said PPC arbitragers con artists. This time its different. If we don’t crack down on loose language we may wake up to find a legal system that writes our businesses out of the picture.