I still wonder about that. I don't have a contract with the advertiser to provide genuine data back about what ads I've clicked and what I haven't. The website operator does have such a contract and so cannot hire a bot farm to spam click the ads.

If it's something that's been held up in court already then of course I have to accept it, but I can't say the reason seems immediately intuitive.

>I don't have a contract with the advertiser to provide genuine data back about what ads I've clicked and what I haven't.

Charges of fraud doesn't require a contract to be in place. That's the whole point of criminal law, it's so that you don't need to add a "don't screw me over" clause to every interaction you make.

How is that a fraud, when I don't get any money from the scheme?

Gaining something isn't required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud#Civil_fraud

By this logic, vandalism would be fraud too.

Vandalism involves making material misrepresentations?

Damaging property cost money to fix.

Where's the misrepresentation?

Where is the misrepresentation in clicking on links?

There's a very general law that says something about using a computer to cause money to move

An AI agent did it. Obviously I can't be expected to watch over all the things it does.