[heroprotagonist]

It's arguable. Fraud generally requires intent to result in financial or personal gain. There's no gain here for the user. There's gain for the advertising company at the expense of the company purchasing the advertisements.

But the advertising company is supposed to well-qualify their targets, right? It's on them for serving and charging for advertisements to people who don't want them or will 'click them' regardless of content.

[hsod]

I'm not a lawyer, but according to this definition the fraud perpetrator need not gain, only cause injury to the fraud victim:

"A false representation of a matter of fact—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury."

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/fraud

[heroprotagonist]

If we take that definition, what is misleading? Users are presented with something asking them to click and then they just automate the clicking. They aren't attempting deceit through their actions.

Now, if the advertiser knows that people are clicking things through a script, and has some clause with their agreement with the company that says 'We won't charge you when this happens' but charges them anyway, that would be deceit. But it'd be on the part of the advertiser to the company buying the advertisements.

[hsod]

> They aren't attempting deceit through their actions.

You don't think so? Isn't the whole point of this extension to try and trick advertisers into paying for non-existent user engagement?

[aninhumer]

But the user never makes any kind of claim or promise that their advert clicking represents real user engagement.

It's up to the advertiser to accurately classify user behaviour, and the user has no responsibility to make that easy for them.

[_audakel]

There is gain for the user, in the respect that they receive the service of their privacy being protected