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Smartphone Apps Fraudulently Collecting Revenue From Invisible Ads
JoeyRox writes: Thousands of mobile applications are downloading ads that are never presented to users but which collected an estimated $850 million in fraudulent revenue from advertisers per year. The downloading of these invisible ads can slow down users' phones and consume up to 2GB of bandwidth per day. Forensiq, an online technology firm fighting fraud for advertisers, found over 5,000 apps displayed unseen ads on both Apple and Android devices. "The sheer amount of activity generated by apps with fake ads was what initially exposed the scam. Forensiq noticed that some apps were calling up ads at such a high frequency that the intended audience couldn't possibly be actual humans."
Cough.
On the one hand, fraudsters who steal phone users' bandwidth in order to reap revenue from advertisers, are scum.
On the other hand, so many advertisers are scum as well, and the enemy of my enemy might be my friend. I might be willing to lose a bite out of my data cap in order to stick it to advertisers. Oops, did I say that out loud?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
[quote]The downloading of these invisible ads can slow down users' phones and consume up to 2GB of bandwidth per day.[/quote]
While this is an interesting revelation, I'm not really sure what the fear-mongering is all about. What is Forensiq trying to sell here?
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
I wonder if a 3rd party lib is responsible for any of this, quietly committing the fraud without the app developer's knowledge? Unless those 5,000+ apps are coming from a relatively small number of developers.
I have eliminated Safari and other data intensive app connections to cellular (WIFI only now) and I'm still getting atrocious data use.
This is called FRAUD.
The first thing I do after a system update or rooting is changing the host file to block all know ads servers.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
This smacks of the ad bombs I've been dealing with on a particular streaming site. The site tries to display an ad, which adblock promptly blocks. The site sees this and decides to send ALL of the ads, in what I'm calling an ad bomb.
Here's how it works. I go to the site and start a video stream. Adblock reports 4 blocked ads. The stream plays fine for awhile until whatever script is running decides its time for an ad.
Then the fun begins.
Watching the ad block counter in realtime in about 45 seconds or less, I've pulled down, not exaggerating, 7500 ads. And they keep going, eventually so much traffic that the stream starts to stutter, and if I let it go longer, my entire wifi network becomes lagged out like a 14.4 modem.
So from the sounds of it, some of these apps are basically doing the same thing without the ad block step, they pull every ad down from the company, thousands of them at once, crippled your phone, destroy your data limit, but never display a single ad to the user. The devs get paid by the ads they pull, there's no checking method to ensure those ads were actually delivered to the end user.
For people on crappy data plans, this is enough to cost you several hundred dollars in "over your limit" data. that's a big punch in the nuts come pay day.
Modern advertisers use apps. Oh wait.
Just like everything else in the world, it's always the victims fault for falling for a scam. It's not my fault they made it technically easy to break contractual agreements. And it is a contract, because advertisers are paying money for a service (in common law that would be called considerations, and it is the first hurdle in determining if a contract is valid, written or verbal).
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
They sell a platform to marketers. The platform attempts to filter out such invisible ad downloads, and it does other things like showing end-consumers the actual address of an ad if it's wrapped in a bunch of iframes.
This story isn't aimed at you, unless you're a marketer looking to avoid paying for ads that customers never see.
I'm pretty sure I had one of these offending apps, at one time -- though, in my case it may have been a legitimate error on the part of the developer, rather then malicious: It was an alarm clock app for iOS, which displayed a banner ad when you had it in portrait mode but not when you had it in landscape mode. Funny thing is, I learned in the course of time that it was still downloading those ads regardless of orientation, because there's an odd quirk in the way some (or all?) iOS apps download ads; they retain the ad on the device for some indeterminate period of time. Since I just left the iPad charging and sitting on that alarm clock app whenever I wasn't actively using the iPad, this caused that one app to bloat to ridiculous proportions over time, eventually filling up multiple gigabytes of space -- that is to say, all of the remaining space on the iPad.
(Naturally, I eventually ditched that app and sought out one which was entirely ad-free.)
On Verizon's network, 1 GB costs $10, so 2 GB * 30 days * $10 = $600. That would be a big deal to me if my kids were playing this game with their 4G connection turned on.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
The sheer amount of activity generated by apps with fake ads was what initially exposed the scam.
It is positively amazing how many criminals manage to wreck a good scam by getting greedy.
You should only pay out on pay-per-click, and even then, the payout should be largely affected by how long that user stayed after clicking an ad, whether they bought anything, etc.
Under a Lochean earned income theory of value (i.e. you should get paid for what you earn), paying an advertiser based on how successful you are at *retaining* customers sent your way seems wrong in most cases. The advertiser is then earning or not earning money based on how good of a job *you* are doing at retaining customers, rather than based on how good of a job *they* are doing at sending you customers.
There is one relevant component there still which is whether they are sending you the *right* customers, but usually we measure that by demographics and income rather than by the metric of how long they stay on your site, which is much more dependent on whether *you* are doing a good job retaining customers.
On the other hand, if you are determining what the advertiser should be paid based just on the free-market whatever-we-agree to idea, then you can pay them based on anything you both agree to, including the number of elephants who would fit in your living room. Most advertisers don't sell advertising based on how effective they are at getting customers to buy things, though--that's what salespeople do, and our society tends to make a significant distinction between sales and advertising.
Story is interesting but without naming the apps... whats the point. I use an ad block on my rooted device, but many are not rooted and can't.
Most websites appear to contain invisible ads. Of course, I use adblock.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Considering that even an app like HTC's "Kids Zone" (a vendor preinstalled, unremovable app with activities for kids to keep them occupied) requires permissions like: "In-app purchases", "Phone calls", "Contacts", "Calendar", etc - aka everything that could run up an enormous bill or exfiltrate your monetizable personal information while your offspring are playing - it doesn't surprise me at all that someone tries to scam the advertising douchebags too ...
Today's smartphone is a device for siphoning personal data and money, whether the owner's or the advertisers, nothing more. Any other functionality that it happens to have is starting to become only a side effect and coincidence (even more if the functionality is actually useful). It is starting to be so bad that soon we will use the smartphones only to access Internet on the go and have a second device to actually perform calls, text and keep any other personal info on.
Similar to how you don't pay to receive a call on your land line, the laws around cell billing need to be changed so that advertisers must pay for their bandwidth usage rather than the user. If I don't ask for it, I should not have to pay for it (radical concept...).
Wasting cell data is not a bother to your provider, rather it just lines their pockets. More transparency on the real cost of data might show how big their incentives to let this crap go on are.
I doubt it's anything to do with this. I suspect it's because they can't measure the effectiveness of TV, print and radio ads. The advertisers tell them their print, TV and radio ads are incredibly effective, then, when they put ads on the Internet where they can directly measure the effectiveness, they discover... they don't actually work.
As someone who has spent money on the Google Display Network and normal search advertising, I can confirm that 100% of ads on mobile and third party sites use click trick / scams to collect CPC revenue with none of the clicks being intentional by potential customers.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
No matter which way I read your post I disagree. I never stated that the victim is at fault, and don't agree with that position. The point I made was that if you keep the candy jar open and in a spot where it's difficult to monitor, you should not be surprised that people grab a piece without your knowledge.
In other words, we have known for as long as Web ads have been around that "click to pay" can be spoofed. Advertisers kind of forced things in that direction because it looked cheaper on the surface.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I wonder if my pc has a few programs like this. It seems whenever I turn on my pc at home, just having it on and idle, slows my network to a crawl. It forces my roku to stop streaming. I have a 25mbps connection. Anyone reccomend a good ip sniffer to see who or what is cramping up my pipes?
That way you don't get to see those flashy ads, but the ad business still finances the app.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I guess I haven't been presented one of these ads, because I don't use 2 GB in a year. But then if they presented an invisible ad to me I might be more likely to buy their product than if they presented a visible ad at me, because that would likely make me not want to do business with that company.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
You cannot find over 5,000 apps displaying unseen ads!
Keep it up, keep ripping off advertisers, drive the value of advertising on our phones down to zero. Eventually nobody will be making money and we can relive the golden age of computers on our smartphones, an age dominated by passionate hobbyists and shareware authors.
I keep thinking that we are going to see Google collapse in on itself when people realize that every dollar spent on internet ads leads to less than a dollar worth of increased sales. But Google is smart enough to not be dependent upon ad revenue, but acts as "the house" where they play odds on both the ad buyers and the ad sellers and make sure the house always gets its percentage. In order for Google to go under, a large number of online businesses would have to realize that online advertising is worthless, and lucky for Google a sucker is born every minute.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
You make that sound like a bad thing. You know, I hope, that you're posting on Slashdot??
This is why the "honest" scammers can't have nice things.
Someone got greedy — a deadly sin.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"Forensiq .. found over 5,000 apps displayed unseen ads on both Apple and Android devices."
What are the names of these apps and how do they get onto the downloaded devices?
Advertising isn't worthless. Online advertising isn't worthless. Poorly targeted advertising probably has negative value. Advertising is especially valuable for things that I didn't know existed. If I'm traveling somewhere new and there's a sign for Canoe rentals, I just might decide to spend a day touring the local waterways. The first iPhone needed a lot of advertising support since it was a brand new product category. I'm waiting to see an advertisement for the latest generation of robot vacuums as I don't know when they will hit the market. I got an email today with Amazon's editors picks for children's books and responded. Downloaded the free samples. If my son likes them, I'll buy the full book. Spyware removal scams are negative value because not only will I not buy it, but the reputation of whoever runs the ad goes down.
On Verizon's network, 1 GB costs $10, so 2 GB * 30 days * $10 = $600. That would be a big deal to me if my kids were playing this game with their 4G connection turned on.
which proves that this is not really happening in the wild, otherwise it'd be a much bigger deal. you'd be hearing about on the local news, not /.
I keep thinking that we are going to see Google collapse in on itself when people realize that every dollar spent on internet ads leads to less than a dollar worth of increased sales.
except that's not true. it's all tracked. do you really think that despite seeing that ads don't result in clickthroughs, businesses still are happy to toss their $ in the garbage?
Because you can monitor traffic coming to the phone.
Whether or not those apps can be removed I think it would be best if there is a list of the fraudulent apps, and if possible, the frequency of those apps downloading the invisible ads (to enable the users to calculate how much bandwidth those invisible ads are costing them)
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
...I feel terrible about having an ancient Nokia that can't download data-sucking apps that paw through my personal data in order to exploit me.
Oh, wait...
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
So all that proves is that traffic was sent to imitate an ad view, not that the ads were actually displayed anywhere.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
the intended audience couldn't possibly be actual humans
Yet another proof of extra terrestrial life
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Slowing down users phones is qualitative.
Developers can clearly make apps that only update/work via WiFi and not over 3/4G so, if I were a nice ad revenue generating programmer, I'd take a hit on the total gain to limit this impact. Users can track how much data an app uses...