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In previous discussion about AdNauseam one user familiar with the ad industry said [0]: > I worked in adtech a few years ago, and AdNauseam-style click fraud i

by hawski 7y ago

In previous discussion about AdNauseam one user familiar with the ad industry said [0]: > I worked in adtech a few years ago, and AdNauseam-style click fraud is a relatively trivial to detect and ignore. It does nothing, and adtech companies don't care about your hate of online advertising the least because that's what brings in the cash. Then other user clarified [1]: > The most usual technique is to setup click baits/traps, once you click on a trap link you (= IP or UID via cookie) are added to an ignore list, where all your actions are not invoiced to advertisers. Simple and works, With all that in mind I came up with an idea at a time [2]: > What would happen if there would be a popular extension that would share UID cookies between all its users? Now, the question is: is it worthwhile to do something like this? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279384 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19279452 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19281078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19281078

yeppie 7y ago
Claiming it's trivial to detect feels like a weak attempt to try to discourage people from using the extension because it's anything but, and that it's something ad networks fear will become mainstream like regular adblockers. The click baits/traps would, in terms of cookies, be countered by the Cookie AutoDelete extension and whenever you browsed in private mode. As for blacklisting IPs, that seems very risky since an IP is often shared among many users (and it's always a risk people use same device, e.g. a MacBook), and it would continue to result in an increasing amount of legitimate users being wrongfully blacklisted as the extension's user base grew. Moreover, assuming these techniques are actually used, then it's safe to assume that at least a few ads would be clicked before they detected they were malicious clicks. And this would be the case whenever a user used a new IP with no cookie present. I'm definitely not convinced it's something ad networks can reasonably detect, especially considering it's important that the ads are served as fast as possible.

by hawski 7y ago

yeppie 7y ago

Claiming it's trivial to detect feels like a weak attempt to try to discourage people from using the extension because it's anything but, and that it's something ad networks fear will become mainstream like regular adblockers. The click baits/traps would, in terms of cookies, be countered by the Cookie AutoDelete extension and whenever you browsed in private mode. As for blacklisting IPs, that seems very risky since an IP is often shared among many users (and it's always a risk people use same device, e.g. a MacBook), and it would continue to result in an increasing amount of legitimate users being wrongfully blacklisted as the extension's user base grew. Moreover, assuming these techniques are actually used, then it's safe to assume that at least a few ads would be clicked before they detected they were malicious clicks. And this would be the case whenever a user used a new IP with no cookie present. I'm definitely not convinced it's something ad networks can reasonably detect, especially considering it's important that the ads are served as fast as possible.