Audience Engagement
1 min read

Huge video ad fraud uncovered

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For years fools like me have been warning advertisers and marketers about the absurd amount of crime and fraud in online advertising.  Introducing Methbot — “the largest and most profitable ad fraud operation to strike digital advertising to date” says, WhiteOps, a provider of online fraud protection software.

According to the Pivotal Research Group, Methbot is responsible for…

– 200-300 million fraudulent video impressions a day

– $3-$5 million in criminal revenue a day

– More than $1 billion in annual revenue a year from fraudulent online video advertising

When you realize that total US income from online video advertising will only be $7 billion this year, you can see how enormous this fraud is. Pivotal says, “the scale of this single fraud is stunning.”

And nobody knows how many other bots are out there.

According to Pivotal, here’s how Methbot works…

“….it is focused on programmatic video inventory and because of the way it has fabricated both demand and supply of inventory. Among other details, Methbot produces counterfeit premium publisher sites and generates fraudulent ad calls that appear to originate from US-based internet providers including Verizon, Comcast and Spectrum. Methbot then generates revenue from programmatic sources of demand seeking premium video inventory.”

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