Ad measurement and verification company Method Media Intelligence uncovered a connected TV fraud scheme that it says rakes in $10 million a month in ad revenue. The scheme, dubbed “RapidFire,” feeds counterfeit bid requests into ad exchanges running open auctions for CTV inventory. Like many multimillion video fraud scams, RapidFire targets server-side ad insertion (SSAI) […]
Ad verification company DoubleVerify recently shut down a new type of scheme in connected TV that uses screensavers to hijack streaming devices in order to generate fake ad impressions – even when the screen is off. DoubleVerify estimates that the scam, dubbed “SmokeScreen,” is bilking advertisers out of more than $6 million a month and […]
Ad fraud in connected TV saw a 12% drop this year to .4%, a sign that ad buyers have been proactive following a number of high-profile schemes over the past several years that bilked them out of millions. A new report by ad verification provider DoubleVerify looked at post-bid data and more than a trillion […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. SPAC Attack Mobile gaming monetization and ad tech provider IronSource began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), with the goal of raising $2 billion in capital at an $11 billion valuation. The IPO comes […]
Following this month’s conviction of Aleksandr Zhukov – the ringleader of an ad fraud scam called Methbot that bilked digital advertisers out of more than $7 million five years ago – industry leaders said that such scams are becoming more frequent in connected TV (CTV) and are often tied to larger cybercrime operations. Leaders from […]
The architect of Methbot was found guilty in a New York court last week. The verdict came nearly five years after the ad fraud scheme was first publicized back in December 2016. We dive into the most intriguing details of the case – from the likely political motivations behind the prosecution to the sophistication of […]
Five years after a Russian ad fraud scheme that bilked digital advertisers out of more than $7 million was uncovered, self-proclaimed “King of Fraud” Aleksandr Zhukov was convicted last week by a federal jury in Brooklyn. Zhukov, 41, was arrested in Bulgaria in 2018 and extradited to the United States in 2019 for running a […]
Ad verification company DoubleVerify went public on Wednesday, a month after it filed an S-1, and a week after it set the terms for the IPO, which had it valued at $4.2 billion. However, the company’s stock opened at $35 a share – nearly 30% above its IPO price – valuing the company at more […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. FLoC Fears There’s no love lost for FLoC. In a blog post on Sunday entitled “Proposal: Treat FLoC As A Security Concern,” a WordPress developer called Carike suggested that users of the open source content management software block FLoC by default. If that happens, […]
Independent global ad server Flashtalking said on Tuesday that it has acquired Israeli-based ad fraud detection specialist Protected Media as it makes a bigger push into the OTT space. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the acquisition was made with a mix of cash and stock. The deal allows Flashtalking to offer verification, […]
Subscribe to AdExchanger Talks on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts. The fight against ad fraud is not over, but progress has been made, says Michael Tiffany, president and co-founder of bot detection and cybersecurity company White Ops. For example, back in the day, around 2012 through 2014, purchasing […]
Enterprise tech giant Oracle said it shut down the largest ad fraud scam in the connected TV space that bilked advertisers and publishers out of $14.5 million in ad spending. Oracle Moat – the company’s business that provides measurement and ad verification solutions across digital and TV – said the fraudsters exploited flaws in CTV […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Trump Gets A Pass The Trump administration is reportedly getting the friends and family deal over at Facebook when it comes to the platform’s misinformation rules – which don’t seem to apply to prominent Trump associates and conservative groups, according to The Washington Post. The […]
SKAdNetwork is Apple’s homegrown solution for attribution. Apple itself verifies when clicks lead to installs and shares that information directly with ad networks through an encrypted postback and without the need to pass an IDFA. That should make app marketing in iOS 14 pretty much impervious to fraud … right? Well, yes and no. It […]
Gaming apps are getting better at beating install fraud. Just 3.8% of paid installs are fraudulent among gaming apps, according to research published by AppsFlyer on Tuesday, compared with 32% of non-organic installs for apps in other categories. Finance apps have the highest app install fraud rate at 48%, for example, followed by travel apps […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Bot-And-Mouse Game The low-hanging fruit of ad fraud is mostly gone. But more sophisticated bad actors are still active. Protected Media identified an in-app bot fraud network, dubbed “Hydra,” that siphoned off an estimated $100 million, Business Insider reports. “It’s the most disciplined operation […]
“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Danilo Tauro, global director of media, tech and data at Procter & Gamble. Is advertising waste being driven by lack of technology, incentives, capabilities or all of the above? To […]
“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Lauren Fisher, vice president of business intelligence at Advertiser Perceptions. The coronavirus outbreak has catapulted connected TV (CTV) into the limelight. What was already considered a promising, premium digital video medium has quickly become […]
“Guys, it’s that time of the month … no not that time. It’s time to spin some more BS to Uber to keep the lights on.” That’s an excerpt from an email sent on Oct. 31, 2016 between two employees at Phunware, according to a lawsuit filed by Uber on July 12 in San Francisco. […]
Fake installs on Android are costing mobile app marketers beaucoup bucks and messing with their data sets. On Wednesday, mobile marketing analytics company Singular released a tool that deterministically validates whether an Android install is real or bogus before the install gets attributed. There are other tools on the market that aim to do the […]
Any sign of bad traffic, and mobile game developer Glu flips the kill switch at the ad network and the publisher levels, said John Parides, Glu’s senior director of user acquisition. “This is something you need to be constantly monitoring,” said Parides, who’s been with Glu for almost five years, during which click spam became […]
While good-acting companies knock themselves out trying to comply with data protection and privacy laws, and regulators debate the minutiae of cookie consent policies, bad actors simply couldn’t care less. The front door may be locked, but the basement windows are wide open. Unauthorized data harvesting from mobile apps has continued nearly unabated in the […]
Oracle has uncovered an ad fraud operation it calls “DrainerBot,” which siphoned off ad dollars and monthly data packages. Oracle’s internet infrastructure business Dyn originally discovered the operation after it picked up suspicious activity among some mobile apps using an SDK from Tapcore, a Dutch mobile monetization company. The apps obscured web data with proxy […]
Walmart, Nike, Amazon, Dell, Honda, Lowe’s – all brand advertisers you can trust, until a bad actor steals their ad creative to use as a vehicle for spreading malware. The problem grows during periods of higher traffic, like the holidays, said Maggie Louie, CEO and founder of DEVCON, a cybersecurity startup focused on fraud detection. […]
Does the world need yet another tech company to combat malvertising on the internet? “Well, do you still constantly see malvertising when you browse the internet?” said Seth Demsey, co-founder of Clean Creative, an anti-malware company started by a handful of security experts and Oath vets who exited before the name change. Touché. Based in […]
After a protracted, year-long alpha period, the IAB Tech Lab has released the specs in beta for the app version of its Ads.txt initiative to reduce counterfeit ad inventory. The App-ads.txt hold-up was caused by app stores dragging their heels on providing support for the Tech Lab’s preferred solution of using metadata tags – essentially […]
When people learned in 2014 that ad fraud was a $6.3 billion problem, many asked why no one had been arrested for stealing all that money from brands. Four years later, that day has arrived. “Finally, somebody gets arrested for this,” said Neal Richter, chief architect of Rakuten Marketing Platform. The FBI charged eight people […]
The Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) released a study on Thursday that found an 84% drop in fraud compared to the industry average when all members in the supply chain are vigilant, badged and on the level. TAG analyzed 75 billion display and video impressions across desktop, mobile web and in-app channels to look for sophisticated […]
The first rule of ad fraud: If it can be spoofed, it will be spoofed. Bad actors are pretending to be legit, demand-side platforms to try and fool partners and blend in with real ad calls as a way to purvey malware and litter the web with forced redirects. “They weasel their way onto the […]
Ads.txt is headed to the app ecosystem. What form will it take? That’s still shaking out. The IAB Tech Lab released guidance on Wednesday with several proposals for how to implement Ads.txt within an app environment. Ads.txt is the Tech Lab’s initiative to reduce inventory spoofing and help advertisers distinguish legit supply sources from the […]
