Advertisers using a CPC model (cost per click, where you pay a certain amount for each click) are constantly struggling with click fraud. For those that don’t know, click fraud is a practice that usually involves a publisher displaying CPC ads and then clicks on those ads so that they get paid. That fraudulent activity can either by done manually or by an automated program.

Companies that provide CPC solutions, such as Google’s AdSense, try to prevent click fraud, but are apparently losing that battle as a new report suggests click fraud to have grown to 17.1% last quarter.

If you are a publisher and have CPC ads on your site (as I do on this site), you’ve probably been tempted to click on those ads to give yourself a few bucks. As with many things on the internet, you don’t necessarily see who you’d be hurting, so you may go ahead and do it. I must confess that when I first started using AdSense I clicked a couple ads displayed on one of my sites and basically stole a couple bucks. Of course, no matter how you or I try and justify it, you are flat out stealing from the advertisers when you click on ads on your website purely to pad your bank account.

It’s depressing to see that the thieves (and that’s just what they are) seem to be staying a few steps ahead of those trying to stop them. Hopefully Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other ad serving companies will find a way to better serve their advertisers’ needs without succumbing to such a large margin of fraudulent activity. Until then, I guess advertisers will just have to add in that 17% on top of their losses column.