Facebook is probably also juking their stats. I don’t trust any of their numbers.
Does it matter? Their effectiveness is proven at this point.
Myspace looked like it was back, but was a pawn in an ad fraud scheme
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Re: Myspace looked like it was back, but was a pawn in an ad fraud scheme
#22Facebook is probably also juking their stats. I don’t trust any of their numbers.
You don't fake your stats, you tell something true that is impressive unless you look under the hood of how the number was formulated. That's how you can get away with it legally. There's a famous old book called "How to Lie with Statistics" (it's on Bill Gates' must read list) that explains some methods companies use.
Re: Myspace looked like it was back, but was a pawn in an ad fraud scheme
#23This is certainly click fraud. Is that fraud in the legal sense?
Re: Myspace looked like it was back, but was a pawn in an ad fraud scheme
#24Re: Myspace looked like it was back, but was a pawn in an ad fraud scheme
#25Viant (aka Specific Media) is a well known fraudster. Nobody in the ad industry thought MySpace was "back" after you heard who bought it years ago. The Vanderhooks (the brothers who founded Specific and continue to run all their schemes) pioneered the pop-under and have been running darker scams ever since. I worked for Specific for a few years and the brothers were refreshingly tech savvy. The penchant for fraud was…
I can confirm. I too used to work there (hi Jack9, good to see you're still around). The owners were secretive and good at compartmentalizing their actions. So, it took a long time to figure out what they were trying to do. Although pure speculation, I would not bet against their complicity in this latest round of fraud.
I'm the journalist who wrote the story and I would love to hear from any current or former employees. craig.silverman at buzzfeed.com.
Re: Myspace looked like it was back, but was a pawn in an ad fraud scheme
#26Another article about this kind of click fraud. And again only lots of details where the traffic goes and how it is then used to "spam" impressions on ads. Does anyone understand what devices/users are actually going into this "funnel" and where they come from? Botnet? Junk traffic from porn sites? Iframes?
why are porn sites "junk traffic"? the users eyeballs are still eyeballs
Historically if you want to pay _lots_ of super cheap traffic, you get it from porn sites. Not the ones with monthly subscription, but the ones where each click leads you to a new domain with a 50/50 (or 95/5 depending on your "value" [US>Bulgaria, Mac>Linux, ...]) chance of landing on some scam site / ad.
Re: Myspace looked like it was back, but was a pawn in an ad fraud scheme
#27This is certainly click fraud. Is that fraud in the legal sense?
If it can be demonstrated that your'e intentionally and knowingly deceiving someone in order to separate them from their money, it's fraud.
Re: Myspace looked like it was back, but was a pawn in an ad fraud scheme
#28Re: Myspace looked like it was back, but was a pawn in an ad fraud scheme
#29Facebook is probably also juking their stats. I don’t trust any of their numbers.
Does it matter? Their effectiveness is proven at this point.
When have they proven the effectiveness of their ads? From my understanding, in fact it is increasingly being discovered that much of their clicks and likes, etc are fake.
Re: Myspace looked like it was back, but was a pawn in an ad fraud scheme
#30Another article about this kind of click fraud. And again only lots of details where the traffic goes and how it is then used to "spam" impressions on ads. Does anyone understand what devices/users are actually going into this "funnel" and where they come from? Botnet? Junk traffic from porn sites? Iframes?
http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/20/technology/ad-fraud-online-m...
Damn, $5MM a day. Even if your network gets broken up after a few weeks that's still a massive win.