Is click fraud legal, and can you punish a competitor

The published text people look to for a penalty on someone else’s clicks does not name click fraud. Article 4 of the Russian competition law, 135-FZ, gives a general definition of unfair competition. Articles 272 and 273 of the Criminal Code speak about access to computer information and about harmful programs. None of the three turns a click on an ad into a ready-made offense, and none says those clicks are allowed.

Below is what those texts actually say, and which conclusion the silence does not support. What a paid empty click is, is set in what ad click fraud is. Who can gain from someone else’s budget, and why the report does not sign a name, is in who clicks ads.

Unfair competition is defined in general terms

Article 4 of 135-FZ calls unfair competition any actions by businesses that aim at an advantage in business activity, conflict with the law, with business custom, with integrity, reasonableness and fairness, and have caused or may cause losses to competitors or harm to their business reputation.

In the published text of the chapter on forms of unfair competition, the word for click fraud does not appear. The definition does not establish that clicks on a competitor’s ads have already been classed as unfair competition. The header of this edition lists changes through 19 April 2024. Later amendments are not checked on that page, so the whole of the 2026 text cannot be read from it.

Article 272 describes access to information

Article 272 of the Criminal Code punishes unlawful access to legally protected computer information if it led to destruction, blocking, modification or copying of that information. A note to the chapter calls damage large when the sum is more than one million rubles. The article does not name click fraud on ads.

The wording is the text open on 25 October 2026. Part 1 is read with the law of 30 November 2024, No. 421-FZ. The sum in the note does not turn a click on an ad into this offense: the published text does not say that. A click on someone else’s ad is not what the article describes.

Article 273 describes harmful programs

Article 273 of the Criminal Code punishes creation, distribution or use of programs, or other computer information, knowingly intended for unauthorized destruction, blocking, modification or copying of computer information, or for neutralizing protection. It does not name click fraud on ads either.

The provision does not mean that a program which clicks ads already falls under the article. That classification is not in the published text. Whether any court has drawn it anyway is not in the sources checked here.

What the silence does not mean

The three provisions do not hand you a case number against a competitor, and they do not declare the clicks lawful. Whether an administrative-code article names click fraud outright, these texts do not answer. You cannot conclude from them that there is no administrative fine.

Cabinet money sits on another plane. A return of spend on traffic Yandex Direct has already classed as invalid is described in does Yandex return money for click fraud. That is a rule of the ad system, not a sentence.

A script on the site sends one check for the visit and gets a decision: let the person through, give the browser a short computing task, or keep them out. It does not run the cabinet and does not count money. That check does not stand in for a legal classification of someone else’s click.