This week's review of ad fraud and quality in the digital advertising space.
"One thorny problem with connected TV (CTV) advertising is that the growing number of ad dollars spent on CTV has attracted fraudsters," wrote eMarketer in a piece examining the state of ad fraud in OTT/CTV. "Pixalate ... estimated that 22% of programmatic OTT and CTV ad impressions were served as invalid traffic [in 2019]. Vendors in this area have unveiled numerous CTV fraud schemes that they claim were worth millions of dollars," wrote eMarketer, including DiCaprio and Monarch.
Mobile Marketing Magazine reports that a popular video editing app with over 100 million downloads from the Google Play Store "has allegedly been attempting to initiate subscription charges while serving hidden ads to users in order to generate fake clicks," citing research from Upstream.
The Edge Malaysia Weekly published an in-depth look at the fight against digital ad fraud, writing: "Digital advertising fraud has been plaguing the advertising industry both locally and [globally] for the longest time, and it is expected to remain an issue in the foreseeable future."
SC Media reports that "the gaming industry [is] an even more alluring target than usual for cybercriminals" due to shifts in consumer media habits stemming from COVID-19. SC Media quoted Robert Gates, threat intelligence analyst with IBM Security X-Force, as saying: “Gaming companies are great targets for ad fraud, credential fraud, bots or distribution of malware through Trojan horse games,”
"Siding against Facebook, a federal judge has ruled that the Arkansas company dotStrategy can proceed with a class-action complaint alleging that Facebook charged marketers for clicks originating from 'fake' accounts," reported MediaPost.
