News Nationwide Credit Card Processing Provider, BankCard USA, Engages Search-Engine Marketing Company to Protect Customers who Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising Westlake Village, CA—Dec. 2, 2008 — BankCard USA, an industry-recognized credit card processing provider, partnered up with Sherman Oaks based, pay-per-click advertising & click-fraud specialist, Connection Marketing, Inc. in a joint effort to reduce pay-per-click fraud against online advertisers. Pay-per-click fraud, otherwise known as click-fraud, is an internet crime. It occurs anytime an individual, automated script, or computer program clicks on a business's ad multiple times for the purpose of generating a charge per click. Click-fraud allows competitors to prevent their competition from making sales online; thereby significantly reducing a business's profit and potentially running their competitors out of business altogether. Due to the competitiveness of the credit card processing industry, BankCard USA has experienced first-hand the financial impact of click-fraud. In response, BankCard USA has commissioned Connection Marketing to create a universal protocol to catch, identify, and deal with perpetrators of click-fraud. The findings will be made public and free-of-charge at BankCardUSA.com. Currently, Bankcard USA has made available on its website Connection Marketing's Click Fraud 101 manual that online advertisers can use to reduce their exposure to click fraud. This can be found at http://www.BankCardUSA.com/ClickFraudDefense101. "Internet marketing is a large source of revenue for many businesses today," notes Alan Griefer, President of BankCard USA. "Click- fraud is more prevalent than what we can currently measure, and appears to be increasingly problematic for businesses. While it is unfortunate that this type of internet fraud is not more aggressively investigated and prevented, companies like Connection Marketing help keep advertisers from losing their advertising budget to dollars to internet click-fraud thieves."