A "click" is a download. In order for the ad network to register your click, you are necessarily sending a request and receiving a response. Whether the browser

A "click" is a download. In order for the ad network to register your click, you are necessarily sending a request and receiving a response. Whether the browser ends up rendering that response, I don't know, but it's certainly possible, especially because ads generally involve redirects which may also be instrumented and may involve JS instrumentation, making spoofing clicks difficult without following redirects and rendering the resulting page.