Thank you for bringing some sanity to this discussion. The article should probably be flagged and pulled. Just read their About page--no details whatsoever and

Thank you for bringing some sanity to this discussion. The article should probably be flagged and pulled. Just read their About page--no details whatsoever and their methodology appears to be looking at Google Trends and the news. As a senior buy-side ad guy who has been in the space for a long time, here's my $.02 for what it is worth: - Click/impression/view fraud are big problems. Viewability solutions are still nascent, but improving. Google and Facebook are both fairly uniquely positioned (due to their data advantages) to continue getting better at cleaning things up. - People who think Google in particular is interested in perpetuating ad fraud aren't thinking things through to conclusion. The reason advertisers like myself spend as much as we do is because from what we can see in the data, it is profitable. Display is arguably less measurable (yada yada attribution yada), but Google is fiercely protective of their ad quality. Being recognized as a source of quality traffic that drives profit is Google's moat. If they could instantly kill all fraudulent traffic they would do it in a heartbeat because they know it would mean even more spend from advertisers who find them to be even more profitable. This is of greater importance now moreso than ever before with the rise of FB and FB's gains on the mobile advertising front. - There is a lot of thrashing and consolidation occurring in the display ecosystem. There is a major shift that has been in the making for years where advertisers are focusing more and more on "audiences" vs. "placements." Thus, whomever has the better audience data will be better positioned. Google has significantly better audience data than most ad networks and exchanges out there. A lot of the highest quality data is 1st party data living in someone's DMP or CRM, and Google has opened up tools for onboarding those audiences much like FB has (yay lookalike targeting!). Not that they didn't know who people were already. - The sell-side has significant pressure from the buy-side to clean up their act. Unless they are doing some sketchy arbitrage, 99% of ad buyers want to stamp out fraudulent traffic. Publishers who can't survive without it are not long for this world. Ultimately there are significant interests and dollars behind killing fraud. - Ad fraud will always exist in some form. That's why it is a number's game as well as a game of whack-a-mole. But yes, back to the original point--let's please not read too much into this...ahem..."well-sourced research."