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I worked in adtech detecting and blocking this stuff circa 2011. Back then it was common for sites like these to be used to launder impressions into higher-payi
by paulgb 7y ago
I worked in adtech detecting and blocking this stuff circa 2011. Back then it was common for sites like these to be used to launder impressions into higher-paying CPI categories. So you might have an arcade site (low CPI) include a hidden iframe for a fake beauty site.
It was honestly pretty easy to detect, but it seemed to me that the industry was just looking the other way because everyone in the industry was just trying to drive volume for their eventual IPO.
I think now the iframe stuff is harder to get away with, but botnets were a big source of traffic as well.
- j-c-hewitt 7y agoI used to think that people would really care about this but because only the advertisers are being defrauded everyone does tend to look the other way. I wouldn't shut up about ad fraud and how big a deal it was going to be years ago and I was just wrong because people in this sector just have a really high tolerance for crime and people are just looking the other way.
- chewxy 7y agoGoogle purchased Spyder.io and did nothing with it by the looks of it. I was involved in the brand safety space (I built ML systems to detect things that are unsafe for the brand). My impression is that even brands aren't really _that_ interested in brand safety. I think they're more reactive than proactive on that end.