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Facebook Lured Advertisers By Inflating Ad-watch Times Up To 900 Percent (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the truth-comes-out dept.

Zorro shares a report from The Mercury News: Not only did Facebook inflate ad-watching metrics by up to 900 percent (Warning: source may be paywalled, alternative source), it knew for more than a year that its average-viewership estimates were wrong and kept quiet about it, a new legal filing claims. A group of small advertisers suing the Menlo Park social media titan alleged in the filing that Facebook "induced" advertisers to buy video ads on its platform because advertisers believed Facebook users were watching video ads for longer than they actually were. That "unethical, unscrupulous" behavior by Facebook constituted fraud because it was "likely to deceive" advertisers, the filing alleged. The latest allegations arose out of a lawsuit that the advertisers filed against Mark Zuckerberg-led Facebook in federal court in 2016 over alleged inflation of ad-watching metrics. "Suggestions that we in any way tried to hide this issue from our partners are false," the company told The Wall Street Journal. "We told our customers about the error when we discovered it -- and updated our help center to explain the issue."

"The plaintiffs are seeking class-action status to bring other advertisers into the legal action, plus unspecified damages," reports The Mercury News. "They also want the court to order a third-party audit of Facebook's video-ad metrics."

32 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Russian ads... fake news... losing customer data to hacks... caught lying to advertisers about # of views.

    How much more punishment can this company take, before it goes down?

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    1. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by ole_timer · · Score: 1

      ...there is no such thing as bad news...only bad reactions...what will they say to this latest crises?

      --
      nothing to see here - move along
    2. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by Zaelath · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You're forgetting the massively inflated reach numbers... https://www.theregister.co.uk/...

    3. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by euxneks · · Score: 2

      It's not punishment if it's self inflicted...

      --
      in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
    4. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by ole_timer · · Score: 1

      to fall on one's own sword, to take one for the team, etc., is considered an honor in some places...

      --
      nothing to see here - move along
    5. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by ole_timer · · Score: 1

      and farmville -> cambridge analytica...

      --
      nothing to see here - move along
    6. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Pretty sure the SlashTurds said don't use Google+, Google will just cancel the project after a few years like they do with everything else that doesn't bring in ad revenue.

    7. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by rtb61 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Technically from the point of view of investors, Facebook should be rewarded for it's extremely successful self marketing con and those who should be punished with a rapid firing, those who bought that worthless ad space, it's capitalism baby.

      Those marketing idiots that bought worthless ad space, might just keep their jobs if they get the money back. These are the small players, how about the big advertisers, they could strip mine Facebook to death, they will be paying attention, especially during discovery.

      All the internet marketing engines are going to come under increasing value auditing, what they really produce, what they really sell, how capable they really are and how much their ad space is really worth. Reality is, they simply advertise too much really shit stuff and the marketing of that, tarnishes every high quality product they try to market. From the consumers point of view, you see an ad for some shite bit of rubbish out of China and the next ad you see, right along side of that, Mercedes, they an erection dysfunction herbal remedy and then, Yves Saint Laurent, then online gambling in some tax haven, then Coca Cola, then a blatant ponzi scheme, then an actual government advertisement (seriously you want people to believe you mixing you advertisement with that rubbish). You get the problem, quality advertising used to be completely separate from junkvertising, now they are right along side each other. Some stupid make you penis grow ad, right along side a Samsung Phone ad, yeah the penis ad by associating damages the market penetration of the Samsung ad, it comes off just as limp as the bigger penis ad.

      Why was very little said earlier, hey, we liked the free content and fuck advertising, quite humorous to see the scammers at Facebook, Google, M$ et al conning all the advertisers. The platform leaves an image, mix junkvertising with quality product information and well, hang around with wild dogs and expect fleas. Of course they lie about the virtues of their advertising platform, that is their number one advertising product, themselves and of course they track the individuals buying their add space, to ensure, those targeted individuals see their ads all of the fucking time, suckers (the customers, oh no, they hardly ever see your ad and when they do it is buried under a flood of junkvertising)

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    8. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by e432776 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm beginning to think Facebook is not a very ethical company!

    9. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by radja · · Score: 1

      Lying to advertisers makes them just a little more ethical though

      --

      No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
      --Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
    10. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by Daralantan · · Score: 1

      Flutter like a butterfly, sting yourself like(????) a bee.

    11. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by Daralantan · · Score: 1

      Some stupid make you penis grow ad, right along side a Samsung Phone ad, yeah the penis ad by associating damages the market penetration of the Samsung ad, it comes off just as limp as the bigger penis ad.

      That, or increase the number of D pics that are being sent.

    12. Re:Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by kisrael · · Score: 1

      Facebook still offers a formula that might be unique on the Internet; a hard to replicate (if only because of the Metcalfe's law / fax machine effect) blend of using real-word identities and relationships to get and give attention, with a lot of work put into making a UI that is friendly enough for non-techies but still pretty feature rich (thinking of how easy it to throw up a photo gallery - and also get an audience for it)

      I don't see people abandoning it en masse, and as long as they can find some way of monetizing the people who are there, they will remain a predominant player.

      I wish it was all the old, independent web and blogsphere where anyone could hang up their shingle, but that paradigm has died out to the "wall"/stream amalgamated views of tumblr, twitter, instagram etc - and Facebook is the only of those really nailing the "real life" aspect.

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
    13. Re: Facebook taking more hits than Mohammed Ali by Doloresanto · · Score: 1

      As much as needed for it to go down for good.

  2. Honest Mistake by sexconker · · Score: 4, Funny

    It was an honest mistake, and I'll be sure to have my team follow up with you on the details, Congressman.

    1. Re:Honest Mistake by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      This is the United States of America, where democracy and justice thrives. It depends who makes the biggest campaign donations.

  3. Re:Follow the money by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

    Sorry, could you repeat that in English, please? Thanks!

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  4. Re:Are there tech companies that don't do this? by Narcocide · · Score: 2

    Well, fudging the numbers to some degree is necessary. The degree to which Facebook has done it here however is unprecedented when combined with how many big advertisers they've defrauded for how long and for how much.

  5. Re:Follow the money by youngone · · Score: 1

    That particular A/C probably identifies as a conservative (or maybe even a libertarian) so the only thing that really matters is that his team wins. br> Even if the world burns down, it won't matter because "liberal tears".

  6. Commerce IS deceit by sgage · · Score: 3, Insightful

    After a corporation attains a certain size, it's all cheating, rigging, corrupting, deceiving. 'Advertising' and 'marketing'. I.e., deceit. 'Twas ever thus, and is still, and will always be. Big business is dirty. It's only a matter of what has been found out. MS, Apple, Google, all reached a certain size and became evil. Facebook is different - it was evil from day one :-)

    1. Re:Commerce IS deceit by Le+Marteau · · Score: 1

      Well, yeah. Companies are created by and run by people, and as such, they reflect the tendencies of their creators.

      Who do you know that never lies? That never has cheated at anything. Being outraged that companies reflect the people who created them is kind of silly. Homo sapiens is a flawed species in many ways, and his creations, as products of his mind, are going to reflect those flaws.

      --
      Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
    2. Re:Commerce IS deceit by sgage · · Score: 2

      Exactly. And when corporations achieve a certain wealth, they are able to take all these oh-too-human foibles to the extreme. And they do. Every time. It doesn't matter who the founders were, because by the time a corporation gets that big, the bean counters and marketers are in charge. Happens. Every. Time.

    3. Re:Commerce IS deceit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Good thing when governments get big, they don't take these foibles to the extreme.

  7. Autoplay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Advertising is why Autoplay is defaulted to on, to defraud the advertisers stats, yes your video was served to [everyuser] in your demographic, wether a human actually requested it is something we measure but are not telling you, we served your advert to a device, job done, fuck you, pay us.

    1. Re:Autoplay by Daralantan · · Score: 1

      I feel like I recall something mentioning this 1-2 years ago. Stating that facebook was initially reporting the ads as having been fully watched, even if the video had only been on for 1 second. It was changed and cited as an error at that time also. Or is this the same event?

  8. No shit? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    Unethical, unscrupulous behaviour from an unethical, unscrupulous company!
    Who would have thought...

  9. Re:That's ok: I reduce ad watch times to ZERO by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    APK hosts file is completely bypassed by DNS over HTTPS, being implemented by both Firefox and Chrome.
    APK host files use zero extra resources from your computer, as it does absolutely nothing!

  10. Re:Are there tech companies that don't do this? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    You're just jealous you didn't scam the advertisers first.

  11. self-watchers by Tom · · Score: 1

    Because when you buy ads from a company whose business model is ads, you can absolutely certainly trust the measurements and statistics that they are making themselves about the effectiveness of theirs ads delivered through their platform to their users.

    That requires an extraordinary level of stupid.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    1. Re: self-watchers by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      Extraordinary Stupids are Facebook's bread and butter. FB is in position to plug each and every one of them into the Matrix. They will work at that until someone drives the stake fully through their cardiac muscle.
      90% likelihood you are plugged in right now, with their script running on this very comment page.

  12. 5$ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you spent 5$ on advertising, anyone with half a brain focused on results would have noticed that the advertised results and what you get are completely off and that the overall advertisement functionality is a sham. Spending 5 or 6 digit values on the same bloody thing without any sort of proof of concept is pretty much your own failure, blindly giving your money away. Now people are upset and are looking for the scapegoat - pointing fingers at everyone but themselves...

  13. Isn't called FAKEbook, for nothing by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    Ya know?