부정클릭의 형사법적 문제점과 대처방안

The Criminal Issues on Click

Recently, Internet(online) advertising provides an immense amount of profits to companies in advertisement business and by 2011 it is projected to surpass television revenues. In this advertising market, Google, the world best search engine company, specialized in search-based advertisement, developing two major advertising forums--AdWords and AdSense. But the behavior threatening to search-based online advertising, so called as "Click Fraud" is beginning to appear. Click fraud describes a range of behaviors that generate clicks on internet advertisements that are not made by potential interested customers, but by people or automated programs for ulterior purposes. These clicks increase prices for the advertiser without providing the corresponding commercial benefit that the advertiser expect. Malicious clicks may purposefully generate money for the offending party or, alternatively, may eliminate a competitor's advertising budget. Google has defined click fraud as the intentional clicking of an online advertisement for a reason "other than to view the underlying content". In Korea, click fraud is regarded as a new criminal behavior by government and e-commerce companies. Click fraud is the behavior which violates online search advertisement market and the stablity or trust in information networks. Yet, existing law and policy combating click fraud can't properly apply to this behavior. In this study, I would like to suggest that it is necessary to deal with click fraud by criminal approach and the statutes of Criminal Act and the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, ETC. should be amended.