Is clicking on my competitor’s ad click fraud?

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 1:35 am

Say I do a google or yahoo search. My competitor's ad is displayed, and I click through on it, costing my competitor money. Is this click fraud? That is, while this is certainly morally wrong, is it also legally wrong? What if, instead of clicking on the ad once per day, I click on it 10 times per day – is that unlawful click fraud?