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Oracle Claims a Fighter of Pirated Apps is a Front For Ad Fraud (adage.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

A company that claims to combat app piracy is a pirate itself, according to a report Oracle released this week. From a report: Oracle claims the company, Tapcore, has been perpetrating a massive ad fraud on Android devices by infecting apps with software that ring up fake ad impressions and drain people's data. Based in The Netherlands, Tapcore works with developers to identify when apps are pirated and then enables developers to make money from those bootleg copies by serving ads. Oracle says that Tapcore's anti-piracy code was a Trojan horse that was generating fake mobile websites to trick ad serving platforms into paying them for non-existent ad inventory.

"The code is delivering a steady stream of invisible video ads and spoofing domains," Dan Fichter, VP of software development at Oracle Data Cloud, tells Ad Age. "On all those impressions it looked like the advertiser was running ads on legitimate mobile websites. Not only were they not on a website, they were on an invisible web browser." On its website, Tapcore says it works with more than 3,000 apps, serving 150 million ad impressions a day. The apps whose pirated versions it has worked with include titles like "Perfect 365," "Draw Clash of Clans," "Vertex" and "Solitaire: Season 4," according to Oracle's report.

11 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. Russian, not dutch... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Based in the Netherlands?

    The only two languages available on their website are English and Russian. It's clearly a Russian company.

    https://tapcore.com/en/position/tech/php-developer

  2. No shit sherlock by mjwx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Scummy company that uses the piracy spectre to get companies to insert ads into paid for programs are revealed to be even scummier by faking ad clicks.

    Thank's for that Detective Obvious, I never would have thought.

    And the fact that they've been accused by Oracle, one of the scummiest of the scummy companies is just a delicious irony.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  3. Maybe by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It just asked the Internet Oracle
    http://the-oracle-answers.com/

    My question was:
    Is a Fighter of Pirated Apps a Front For Ad Fraud?

    THE ORACLE answers:
    Maybe.

  4. Someone's busy not doing his job? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why is the VP of software development at Oracle Data Cloud investigating Tapcore's anti-piracy code instead of... working on Oracle's Data Cloud?

    1. Re:Someone's busy not doing his job? by Sique · · Score: 1

      Why is someone trying to conjure up a false dilemma?

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    2. Re:Someone's busy not doing his job? by Sique · · Score: 1

      No. The Vice President of Software Engineering oversees all software projects at Oracle, not just your pet project Oracle Data Cloud. It might be that there are big problems, but that does not mean that all other software projects at Oracle have to stop immediately. The programmers in other projects are no cloud specialists and wouldn't be helpful anyway.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
  5. Well there's your problem... by thomn8r · · Score: 3, Insightful

    [quote]Tapcore works with developers to identify when apps are pirated and then enables developers to make money from those bootleg copies by serving ads. [/quote] Sounds like the developers were hoping to cash in a bit as well.

  6. Like likes like by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    I'm sure Oracle is expert at spotting fraud. Just compare to themselves...

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. The Oldest Saying in the Advertising Industry by Spinlock_1977 · · Score: 2

    The "Oldest Saying" in the Advertising industry is: I know 50% of my advertising dollars are wasted, but I don't know which 50%.

    I guess this remains as true today as it was in the seventies.

    --
    - The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
  8. at oracle you are a pirate if you don't license th by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    at oracle you are a pirate if you don't license there way 100% even say need to buy 50 cores when you just need 1 VM with 6.

    https://upperedge.com/oracle/u...

    Please note in this scenario the turned off server counts in Oracle’s processor license equation. This is due to Oracle’s policy requiring the entire server farm in the cluster to be counted and licensed because a customer has the potential ability to run the Oracle database on all connected servers and cores. Whereas VMware’s licensing interpretation only takes into account the actual cores assigned to the virtual machine running the Oracle database.

  9. Re: Ad fraud huh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You buying that copy is like an ad impression. Letting other people see it is no different than letting other people see your browser or app with the ads displayed.

    The fraud here is the publisher of the app, analogous to the publisher of the magazine, claiming ad money for copies that were never sold -- impressions that nobody saw, analogous to faking the number of subscribers who got a copy of the magazine.