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Fraud Bots Cost Advertisers $6 Billion
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."
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Maybe because "high value consumers" are usually bot-like drooling idiots.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
Here's the thing. This is like a microeconomics modeled market. If the click rate is inflated by 25%, I'll wager the payouts compensate by being deflated by 25%. Advertisers are willing to pay for clicks, and will probably adjust their prices accordingly.
One of the few times I feel comfortable saying online that the free market will handily solve this problem, without worrying that I'll end up sounding like a lolberterian.
Basically they host a website and sign up with Google or some other company to display ads. Google shares some of their revenue that they receive from the companies that pay to have their ads displayed. The people committing the fraud use scripts, bots, or some other automated program to fake visits to the site and clicks on the ads, which increases the amount of money the person running the site receives.
Imagine it as if were a company that would pay you if you filled out a survey about your interests and you handed them hundreds of fake surveys in order to get more money.
So in order for a website to remain free for the users use, they will need to post more advertisements to make up for it.
If you don't like advertising on you favorite site. Then you better find them a business model where they can keep running (as it isn't free for them) and feed their family's.
Otherwise just suck it up as the cost of having free access to their data.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That's because a "high value customer" doesn't behave much different than a bot. Sadly, it's not the other way around.
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.
So in order for a website to remain free for the users use, they will need to post more advertisements to make up for it.
If you don't like advertising on you favorite site. Then you better find them a business model where they can keep running (as it isn't free for them) and feed their family's. Otherwise just suck it up as the cost of having free access to their data.
If they can't 'feed their families' on the income of their website, and they don't wan't to add a subscription tier to the site, maybe they should get actual jobs.
not in the least. I never click on those annoying ads unless its by mistake. Which begs the question...who exactly is clicking on those ads? And how many of those clicks add up to actual sales? I think it's a lot lower than advertisers would lead us to believe.
It's not my job to find their business model. If no one wants to pay for their content then the have worthless content. People are not owed money just because they put up a website.
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.
>If you don't like advertising on you favorite site. Then you better find them a business model where they can keep running (as it isn't free for them) and feed their family's.
>Otherwise just suck it up as the cost of having free access to their data.
Oh hay look, the old "if you don't like ads and block them you're stealing from the mouths of the children" argument.
It would be fine if I could trust the ad networks to not serve up malware, but even my own favorite sites have hosted malware from their ad networks from time to time.
Blocking ads is a much more of a security issue more than a convenience issue.
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BMO
One that I pay a subscription to is Ars Technica. They actually make content worth paying for. Not vacuous, ad-ridden clickbait.
There's an auto enthusiast forum that I use that has a lot of paid subscribers. I'm classed as a supporter because I write articles and take events pictures for them, and have been sent a polo shirt to wear while I'm doing it if I want.
In this case the site is a lot more than just a forum though, the owner and admins go through a lot of effort to organize material so it's easy to reference. It's not quite to Wiki-level organization, but short of being user editable it's pretty damn good.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It's arguable that they only have themselves to blame for not doing better audits. A lot of malware comes from ads, which end up in botnets, which end up clicking ads to make money.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
They could just host the ads first party based on CPM statistics like a god damn newspaper, but then they would have to do actual work instead of plugging in some 3rd party malware laden ad engine.
A thousand times this.
I would much rather have 99% of the web disappear than have it continue in its current state (ads everywhere, selling my info, letting advertisers control content, forcing me to watch an ad and type "I LOVE MCDONALDS" before showing me content, etc.).
The vast majority of content is worthless. Not just to me but to the vast majority of people.
Costs are going DOWN, and have been for ages. If you want to run a blog without ads under your own hosting account, that will cost you less than nearly any other hobby you could think of, even if your blog features adorable corgis that have gone viral. If you want to post videos of yourself playing video games you'll have an upfront cost of capture equipment, a webcam, and maybe some editing software. The PC, consoles, games, and ISP bill were shit you would be paying for regardless.
The majority of "content producers" on the web have little to no cost and produce little to no original content, let alone worthwhile content. Even for the subset of content I personally enjoy, I recognize that it is worthless - I would not pay a single cent to access it. If it were paywalled I would simply go without it. Serving ads alongside content makes me enjoy the content less, so I block those ads. If you fight against this, your content becomes less enjoyable.
TL;DR: The web would be better without ads, even if the majority of ad-supported content became paywalled or disappeared (as determined by what viewers feel is worthy of their $). The vast majority of content on the web is produced at little to no cost anyway. If you want your web content to be your job, then charge for it. If you want it to be your hobby, then pay for it as you would any other hobby.
The only ads I get that are truly targeted come AFTER I've bought something. I bought a freezer a few days ago. Now I get ads for fridges and freezers everywhere because I had looked up some reviews. Do these idiots really think I'm in the market for two freezers? Same thing happened with an engagement ring. I'm STILL getting targeted ads for jewelry even though they're almost a year late. I have made a point to visit a few high profile lingerie sites just so that my targeted ads for the next few months will feature scantily clad models. Just have to go to their homepage then close the tab.
So in order for a website to remain free for the users use, they will need to post more advertisements to make up for it.
If you don't like advertising on you favorite site. Then you better find them a business model where they can keep running (as it isn't free for them) and feed their family's.
Otherwise just suck it up as the cost of having free access to their data.
I call BULL and SHIT.
I've run several website over the years. Some were rather popular (though none were huge) and he costs of hosting them was a joke.
In my job I help maintain a site that gets hundreds of thousands of hits a day. Again, the cost for hosting is trivial, though, since it's an important site financially, changes to it are done through committee and such, and that costs a bit. It depends on if it's a site that "can't" go down. If it's a hobby site, or just for fun and your users understand your on a budget and can't afford fancy testing for site changes... you're fine.
The fact of the matter is, if you use a hosting service, you can put up a relatively popular site for less than you pay for Cable TV per month. This isn't 1999.
Not to mention if you do this, you are much less likely to be blocked by ad-blocking software anyway.
No. Just no.
It is NOT my job to solve someone else's business model problem. You can't sustain your webpage with me using an adblocker and your ad customers leaving you? Have me pay for your page. Don't think I'd pay to use your page? Guess you're not really convinced of your page if you yourself don't think I'd pay for using it.
It is NOT your visitor's job to do yours. It is NOT my problem how you fund your webpage. You are NOT entitled to anything. Neither to visits nor to people clicking anything. If you do not want me to visit your page, that's what you can do.
Because you know just like I do what the actual problem is: If you don't let me use your webpage with adblocker, I will not use your webpage altogether. Why? Because you're by no means the only one providing some service. I might be using yours out of convenience, out of convention, because I did so in the past and don't want to switch, or maybe some other irrational reason. None of these is trumped by either me having to pay for it or me having to endure some stupid ads. And YOU KNOW THAT.
So please, don't gimme that "you're stealing money from my kids". If you can't sustain yourself with your webpage, go find a honest job. You're not entitled to being able to sustain yourself with whatever business model you dreamed up, and I'm not required to prop it up.
You're not the content industry!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You think you have it bad? I was looking for liquid latex to cover some electronics with a non-conductive and non-slippery surface.
You have NO idea what ads I had to endure when my adblock was out of order due to an update of the browser. The images ... THE IMAGES ...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If and only if they also do not visit the site. Not being willing to spend money does not equal worthless as their time has worth.
People waste time on lots of things they think are worthless. Spending time to do something doesn't mean you give it worth.
Costs are going DOWN, and have been for ages. If you want to run a blog without ads under your own hosting account, that will cost you less than nearly any other hobby you could think of
This, hosting a large site costs less than a bag of golf bats.
Hell, a small site costs me A$90 per year to host in Australia on a reputable ISP (so I could get it cheaper if I used Dodgy Brothers datacentres) including registering the domain.
The problem with advertising is that it has become so intrusive and annoying. So people are fighting back with ad blockers. We dont like pop-ups, pop-unders, pop-reacharounds ads that load before content, talking ads, flashing ads so we block them. Strangely enough the text based ads I get on gmail and google are fine (and often missed by adblock). The advertisers started this arms race, now they're upset that they're losing it.
Ranting aside, the best business model I've seen for a website isn't advertising in as much as tying it to a real business. Travel forums do this a bit, they are either owned or sponsored by a local business like a bar or hotel that keeps some subtle advertisement. So people who use that site tend to frequent the business that runs it. Of course it needs to be a decent business for this to work but it works fantastically if you do run a good business.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Advertisements do not pay for the internet.
The net existed long before advertisers got a hold of it and ruined it. Advertisers are not sponsoring the net there just cashing in on its popularity. The article calls the bots "a criminal network." it should call them heroes of the fucking universe.
The biggest problem here is ignoring that there are different types of transactions in a community, which include subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft (as discussed on my own website). Selling eyeballs to advertisers to fund a website is primarily an exchange economy transaction. But, as with putting up holiday lights just to make the darkness cheery, there can be gift giving involved in an action (even with a substantial power bill for the lights). You put up lights this year in one place, someone else puts up lights some other year somewhere else, and we all (in theory) enjoy the spectacle. Or, like many towns have tax-funded street lights for safety and convenience, government agencies like NOAA can put up useful websites about the weather with hazardous weather alerts, or NASA can put up useful websites about space science. People can also put up personal websites with journals or "How To" documents just because they are useful or interesting to themselves and their family (subsistence) and accept that it is OK if others look at them.
About a dozen years ago, I read somewhere on Philip Greenspun's website (on making websites), a comment to the effect that, if people announce they are getting a cat, or learning to play the piano, or taking vegetarian cooking lessons, people very rarely ask, how are you going to make money at that? But when people start a website, that seems to be the first question other people ask.
Of course, things have changes a bit now that so many people use Facebook or similar instead of just hosting their own website. It's ironic, since it is so cheap to host your own content now on a paid website (US$5 per month for a cheap one?) or even free on GitHub pages and similar. Or you can get a FreedomBox-like "wall wart" server (in theory) that just serves content through your ISP (in theory, since many ISP's prohibit servers on personal accounts).
I plan another comment related to the Pointrel software ideas I've been working on (including a social semantic desktop) and how it overlaps the ideas discussed in the BitTorrent Project Maelstrom to have distributed content. My work is still in flux (and may never succeed perhaps), as are other options like FreedomBox or Maelstrom which are works in progress. But the point is, more options are emerging for creating and distributing content and we may, at some point, get away from centralized servers and back to the older model where people had local copies of books and papers or went to local libraries for copies of such. The model of the web right now is like than expecting that every time someone wanted to read something of some sort they visit the office of the person who wrote it. And if that person's office door is closed, you can't read it. We can do better as a society. Yes, people can make copies like of Wikipedia pages, but the context is lost and the copies are hard to manage. We could hopefully do better.
However, it is fair to ask how people can survive physically and financially in the 21st century. I feel a basic income for everyone in the USA (not just people over 65 on "Social Security") and other countries too could be part of the answer to that, and that such a world would be overall a better place with more creativity and more subsistence production and more gift giving and healthier participation by citizens in government planning -- and with less theft by "clickfraud" or other means. However, even without a basic income, the "git economy" aspect of the internet has saved me a lot of money and trouble, from people generally freely sharing advice (including links to free software) on personal blogs (or on an advertising supported site like Slashdot). I hope my own contributions as part of that informational gift economy will prove worthwhile and useful at least to some people here and there.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.