bot fraud

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. White Hot The Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs is leading a deal to buy bot detection and anti-fraud company White Ops, Business Insider scoops. Goldman is being joined in the deal by VC firm ClearSky Security and investment firm NightDragon. The trio will […]

Like any good media planner, fraudsters are attuned to time of year, seasonality, demographics, ad formats and trends in consumer behavior. With football season and the MLB playoffs in full swing, they seem to have turned their attention to pro sports sites. “We see a lot of sophisticated invalid traffic targeting premium sites,” said Amit […]

Wait, there’s good news in the fight against ad fraud? The global monetary impact of ad fraud is expected to go down this year, the amount of mobile fraud happening in the ecosystem is much lower than feared and programmatic can be just as safe as direct-sold if buyers implement the right security measures. The […]

Malicious bots are getting more sophisticated and bot blocking companies are raising more cash – the arms race is in full swing. One such company, Distil Networks, announced $21 million in Series C funding on Tuesday as part of its bid to keep combating what CEO Rami Essaid called “a growing problem.” The round, led by […]

Battle cries and breast beating notwithstanding, the industry doesn’t seem to be doing all that much to tackle bot fraud, which is expected to take a $7.2 billion bite out of ad budgets in 2016. That’s according to research released on Tuesday by the Association of National Advertisers and bot detection firm White Ops. It’s […]

The New York Times has a solution to the bot fraud problem: “Buy quality.” So declared Michael Zimbalist, SVP of advertising products and R&D at the Times, speaking at OpenX’s session about trust in the supply chain at Advertising Week in New York City. “You get what you pay for,” Zimbalist said bluntly. “We need to collapse […]

The mistaken belief that there’s an infinite supply of targetable inventory on the Internet keeps fraud viable. That’s a key takeaway from a presentation last Thursday by Videology and White Ops at Videology’s New York City office, following a partnership between the two companies in May. “Online ad spending spikes up in November and December,” […]

Are You a Human is looking to up its human headcount. The digital security and human traffic verification company plans to spend the majority of its $4.2 million in Series A cash, announced Thursday, to roughly double its current headcount from 25 to around 50 by the end of the year. The fresh injection, led […]

Rocket Fuel intends to release a free anti-fraud product in June called Bot Or Not – available to advertisers regardless of whether they’re clients. (Update 5/27: The company has settled on the name Botfinder.) CTO Mark Torrance announced the product’s existence at the Rocket Fuel Summit in New York City on Tuesday and shined a little light into […]

In the past week, Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify – two companies whose aim is to ensure that brand advertisers get the kind of exposure and inventory they expect – unveiled their respective tools designed to limit, if not eliminate, the waste caused by fraudulent traffic – namely “bots.” The new tools, as outlined by […]