Traffic Fraud Inflates Video Site Popularity

Dotnaught writes "A new study by spyware researcher Ben Edelman finds that spyware-driven traffic inflation is common, particularly at video sites. The study identifies Bolt.com, GrindTV.com, Broadcaster.com, Away.com, RooTV.com, and Diet.com as the beneficiaries of spyware-driven traffic. 'Our measurement systems are inaccurate for the amount of trust we'd like to put into them,' Edelman said. 'So that's the puzzle: How do you build an advertising economy when the number can't be trusted?'"

Comments

Who??

[Mr2001]

I've never heard of any of those video sites. Is this an actual problem affecting well-known sites, or just these no-names?

Re:Who??

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I've never heard of any of those video sites. Is this an actual problem affecting well-known sites, or just these no-names? I don't think it matters. With yoogle poised to do "revenue sharing" for videos hosted on their systems, the described abuse seems likely to become more popular. Both directly for profit and indirectly as "clumsy" joe-jobs to deprive the 'competition' from receiving valid income.

I believe the fundamental question about building an advertising based economy on untrustable numbers is indeed key. This attack is the equivalent of someone figuring out how to plant a remote-controlled tv remote-control in every Nielson living room and using it to fool Nielson's tracking into thinking the families where all watching certain shows - ones for which the producers had paid the remote-control controller a fee. If that were to happen, billions of dollars of tv advertisment revenue would be at risk.

The internet makes such an otherwise impossible attack relatively easy. I suspect the only long-term solution is to not base the economy on advertising. Find another way, my personal favorite being something along the lines of "global co-op comissioned work with release to the public domain." In other words, pay for actual creative work done, not unreliable statistics about eyeballs and promotion.

This is how...

[Duncan3]

How do you build an advertising economy when the number can't be trusted?

There's a sucker born every minute. Customers and advertisers both. Google proves it every day. Even the price comparison sites are becoming bogus.

Widget online: $3
Shipping & "handling": $25
Markup for the ad we had to buy to get you here: $47
On sale at the local mall: $2

Now that Google is taking over the entire ad space, it's one simple entry in the ad blocking software to eliminate most ads. Get Adblock properly configured and you'll rarely if ever see an ad.

It's a problem everywhere

[Evets]

This problem has been around since the begining of web stats in general. There was a time not long ago when people didn't differentiate between hits and page views or visits. 100,000 hits on a given site could mean anywhere between 1,000 and 50,000 page views.

Some people intentionally inflate their stats, others end up inflating them unintentionally. Drudge reports an absurd amount of page views in their advertising page, but if you stay on the home page for any length of time you see the page auto-refreshing. Does that count? If you are selling CPM advertising, it probably does. If you are buying it, you hope it doesn't.

In the end, advertisers either are doing brand advertising or conversion advertising. If they are doing conversion advertising it's simple - identify potentially good advertising locations and figure out the comparitive ROI with a trial run. If you are doing brand advertising, you can base your dollars on alexa or nielsen or some other marketshare stat vendor, or you can simply research the site niches yourself to determine the extent of their advertising power within the community.

Advertising has been wrought with snake oil vendors since the beginning. Nothing has changed and nothing ever will. Like anything else - if a deal is too good to be true, it probably is. And just because a deal is priced in congruency with the rest of the market doesn't mean that you can accept it at face value. PR firms don't just exist to put out a public image, they exist because they are supposed to understand the advertising marketplace better than most people would ever care to.

Re:Advertising is inherently untrustworthy

[timmarhy]

thats not strictly true. i've encountered advertising thats discrete, gave me the information i was looking for and was very handy. unfortunately thats a rare thing. all those dating and "your our millionth visitor you've won" ads need to fuck off.

Party over.

[ajs318]

'Our measurement systems are inaccurate for the amount of trust we'd like to put into them,' Edelman said. 'So that's the puzzle: How do you build an advertising economy when the number can't be trusted?'

Short answer: You don't.

Advertisers are parasites that manage to hook into both ends of the food chain. They suck producers dry under the false pretence of bringing consumers to them; and they suck consumers dry by inflating the prices of goods (to pay for the adverts that they are ignoring).

We have now reached a saturation point: there is literally nowhere left for the advertising industry to plaster their garish advertisements. Everywhere you look, there's a f***ing advertising hoarding. Then they got clever and used "time-domain multiplexing" -- revolving hoardings that can fit three posters into the space of one! People wander round in clothes made in third-world sweatshops, that boldly display the manufacturer's name; yet they actually paid good money to do that. (Unless they bought the better-quality counterfeits, and the real manufacturer still gets the benefit of advertising either way.) The only watchable TV channels -- unless you've got Sky Plus -- are from the BBC. And don't think you can get away from it in the cinema. First they advertised before the movie. Then they advertised the tie-in merchandise for weeks after the movie. Nowadays the whole movie is one long advert!

When the advertising industry is dead, there'll be one MOTHER of a queue to dance on its grave.

Re:Party over.

[king-manic]

Advertising does create value for someone. You need to know whats out there and no one has prefect knowledge. Advertising provides a base point to get more info. Suppliers too. Like it or not A great product with little advertising (Linux/stewarts soda) will always be beat by a okay product with good advertising (Windows/coke). With marketing being equal then other factors comes into play (VHS vs Beta). So while the consumer gets nothing out of it the retailer/manufacturer has to play the game.

Re:Party over.

[sholden]

How is charging different prices shonky?

Different payment methods have different costs as does online and in-person transactions.

Checks and credit cards have the potential to bounce or be charged back. Cash has the potential to be stolen. Surely if something costs the supplier different amounts they can charge the customer different amounts without being branded "shonky"?

Coca Cola branded soda costs more than unbranded stuff at the supermarket because they cost the supermarket different amounts in to buy themselves. Is that shonky?

Re:Party over.

[sholden]

Yes a pound of your money is worth a pound, however if you pay with cash the store has to spend X cents (where X is a very small number) on security /insurance against theft. If you pay with a credit card then the bank probably charges them a fee plus there's the risk of a charge back which amortizes to Y cents (again a very small number). If you pay with a check then there's the risk of it bouncing which again translates to some amortized cost of Z cents.

The store doesn't give a stuff how much you actually pay for the item. They care how much money they get for the item. If you want to use a credit card why should the store pay the fee the bank charges - you're the one choosing to use a card for your convenience so you should pay that fee.

You are being charged the same price for the same goods. You pay extra for the additional costs you inflict on the merchant.

What you are really arguing is that the costs inflicted on the merchant by credit card users and people who want to come into the store instead of order online should be paid for by charging the people who don't inflict those costs on the merchant as higher price. Which seems the shonky way to me.

Note: it may well be that people who pay cash inflict more costs than those who pay by credit card - in the form of security costs, insurance costs, staff costs to transport the money, etc, etc - but the argument is the same just flip the credit card/cash parts...

Money

[skinfitz]

Seems to me the simple solution is to track the money made from ads rather than the hits. If this happens there will be no incentive to fake hits.