"Google is billing advertisers for paid search clicks when, in fact, no searches have taken place," Ball said in a blog post at the Apogee Weblog. "This is click fraud."

Despite this straightforward accusation, and the details that followed in Richard's post, Google has not responded to a request for comment about it. Perhaps the folks who could respond are too busy watching shares of GOOG nuzzle the underbelly of $700.

Richard's post needs a little explaining, as the activity taking place is a little complex. Someone types in a domain into a browser address bar, iowagop.com in Richard's test example, and ends up at a parked domain page.

That page contains a list of "hot links." Clicking one of the list's items, like Iowa Straw Poll, brings up another page titled, "Search results for: iowa straw poll."

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