SYDNEY: Australian small businesses are also on a collision course with Google, claiming the tech giant is turning a blind eye to “click fraud” because it benefits financially from it.

Melbourne lawyer Mark Stanarevic said his firm, Matrix Legal, had been approached by a number of Australian small businesses over the past year concerned about the practice that occurs when a bot imitates a legitimate user and clicks on an ad — driving up the cost of advertising because it is based on a pay-per-click system.

“These small businesses spend upwards of tens of thousands of dollars a year in advertising and it seems Google has a strong monopoly in regards to this market.” Stanarevic said.

One company said there was no way to know how the price of cost-per-click was determined because there was no oversight or transparency of the process.

“And, more importantly, how do you know that they are actual real clicks. They have bots which troll your website.”