Home The Big Story Uncloaking A New Programmatic Scam

Uncloaking A New Programmatic Scam

SHARE:

Behind every scam is someone with a deep understanding of the nuances (and loopholes) within a given system.

In one such operation, uncovered this year by invalid traffic monitoring company HUMAN, the scam cloaked traffic coming from piracy sites. Advertisers thought they were buying on a cryptocurrency news site, for example, but their ads were actually served while someone was pirating the latest superhero movie.

AdExchanger Senior Editor Anthony Vargas discusses what he learned from HUMAN about how the site operators carried out the scam (which included a very clever use of cookies) and how HUMAN stopped it. When you peel back the scheme’s layers, you get a deeper technical understanding of how digital advertising works.

AI agency assistants

Then, who doesn’t want AI to remove the drudgery from their tasks or make data digestible and actionable? Agencies like Omnicom and PMG are working on tools that help media planners, creative agency folks and strategists with tasks, such as audience planning. Could this AI tech transform agency work? AdExchanger Associate Editor Victoria McNally shares what this specialized tool can do and what sets it apart from a general tool like ChatGPT.

Must Read

Google Rolls Out Chatbot Agents For Marketers

Google on Wednesday announced the full availability of its new agentic AI tools, called Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor.

Amazon Ads Is All In On Simplicity

“We just constantly hear how complex it is right now,” Kelly MacLean, Amazon Ads VP of engineering, science and product, tells AdExchanger. “So that’s really where we we’ve anchored a lot on hearing their feedback, [and] figuring out how we can drive even more simplicity.”

Betrayal, business, deal, greeting, competition concept. Lie deception and corporate dishonesty illustration. Businessmen leaders entrepreneurs making agreement holding concealing knives behind backs.

How PubMatic Countered A Big DSP’s Spending Dip In Q3 (And Our Theory On Who It Was)

In July, PubMatic saw a temporary drop in ad spend from a “large” unnamed DSP partner, which contributed to Q3 revenue of $68 million, a 5% YOY decline.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

Paramount Skydance Merged Its Business – Now It’s Ready To Merge Its Tech Stack

Paramount Skydance, which officially turns 100 days old this week, released its first post-merger quarterly earnings report on Monday.

Hand Wipes Glasses illustration

EssilorLuxottica Leans Into AI To Avoid Ad Waste

AI is bringing accountability to ad tech’s murky middle, helping brands like EssilorLuxottica cut out bots, bad bids and wasted spend before a single impression runs.

The Arena Group's Stephanie Mazzamaro (left) chats with ad tech consultant Addy Atienza at AdMonsters' Sell Side Summit Austin.

For Publishers, AI Gives Monetizable Data Insight But Takes Away Traffic

Traffic-starved publishers are hopeful that their long-undervalued audience data will fuel advertising’s automated future – if only they can finally wrest control of the industry narrative away from ad tech middlemen.