Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fraud Bots Cost Advertisers $6 Billion

Posted by samzenpus on from the wanting-a-human-click dept.

Rambo Tribble writes A new report claims that almost a quarter of the "clicks" registered by digital advertisements are, in fact, from robots created by cyber crime networks to siphon off advertising dollars. The scale and sophistication of the attacks which were discovered caught the investigators by surprise. As one said, "What no one was anticipating is that the bots are extremely effective of looking like a high value consumer."

3 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Good. by pla · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Where do I get one of these bots?

    I don't want the money, I just want to make sure Madison Ave doesn't have it either.

  2. New Revenue System by toejam13 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps advertisers should finally move away from the current revenue system that pays per-click and should instead move towards a profit sharing system where the referring website receives a commission based on any sales or executed transactions.

    I've been reading about click fraud for over a decade now. I don't expect it to go away under the current system.

  3. I'm just going to leave this here. by FictionPimp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

    Seems like everyone in this article though it was a bad idea..but it looks like it does hurt them.