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Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

samueljscott.com

251–260 of 286 posts

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#251
post #217
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CapOne offers that for their credit cards, but it's so clunky and unintuitive that I still wind up using Privacy 90% of the time.

I have a Capital One card and wanted to use that feature. As far as I could tell, the only way to use it was to install their "assistant" browser extension and give it permission to view everything you do. Then if you were on a merchant site it could suggest you use a new card number for it. I considered toggling the assistant on and off just as needed but instead said nope. Was there another way to do it?

[deleted]

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#253
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, at my last employer we had our own systems analyzing traffic, we had integrations with third parties (DoubleVerify being the biggest) to detect fraud, our clients often had their own third party integrations to detect fraud and would complain if we hadn't found it but they did at too high a rate, etc. Honestly after the ad images/video, all the fraud detection javascript from the advertiser, the publisher, the…

Every been to a big break and motor store and they asked for your zip code? That is because they have someone in the back office to wants to see if the ads - dead tree paper - they spent to your zip code worked. It isn't hard to work the numbers from there, but it is tedious and requires some statistics.

ZIP code is also used for credit card verification.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#254
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds a bit like the "systemic failures" that brought down the housing market in 2008. It's always been a surprise to me how much money is flowing from ads and how any business can be so reliant on it, since this makes it sound like it's fundamentally flawed. One would think the jig would eventually be up.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when the jig is finally up, since there's so much stuff we're used to getting for free that is currently financed by all of this: email, maps and GPS navigation, staying in contact with college friends, ...

Honestly I think we'll be fine. If the services are worth something then people will be willing to pay for them. Newspapers, magazines, email, satellite radio, navigation systems etc. all existed (and were very profitable) well before online advertising became what it is now. We might even be better off that way.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#255
> LinkedIn’s ad platform reported 11 clicks. RMG’s logs showed ten clicks.

This is well within the IAB's 10% discrepancy. Also that sample size is bullshit. I could show you the sample size of my $7,000 campaign from a couple months ago that recorded a slightly larger discrepancy, but the fact of the matter remains that LinkedIn was the best performer of all ad networks I tested.

Again: That's not to say there's no fuckery afoot but that is a hell of small sample size to refer to as a "study".

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#256
post #177
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand, I agree that the capability is concerning, but if it only records the behavior within a single visit and doesn't correlate it with an account, or across multiple visits, or across websites at all, I think that that probably wouldn't be much of an issue, for me at least. However, I don't see a way to allow that without also making the aforementioned unwanted connections also possible.

Here's the documentation for passing a user identifier to Hotjar: https://help.hotjar.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033640653-Ident... This is a bit better than it used to be. At one point the documentation had a field for User Email Address, and only a footnote in some documentation suggested it be hashed. Still, for a company that chooses to use the feature, the session recording can be tied back to the user account and…

thanks

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#257
"FullStory reported mouse movements that were nothing like what an actual human would do."

That web sites can tell where I move my mouse is simply unacceptable. What can we do to block JS from reporting mouse movements? (Yes, I know I can turn JS off altogether, but most sites aren't fully functional without JS.)

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#258
post #217
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CapOne offers that for their credit cards, but it's so clunky and unintuitive that I still wind up using Privacy 90% of the time.

I have a Capital One card and wanted to use that feature. As far as I could tell, the only way to use it was to install their "assistant" browser extension and give it permission to view everything you do. Then if you were on a merchant site it could suggest you use a new card number for it. I considered toggling the assistant on and off just as needed but instead said nope. Was there another way to do it?

Totally bogus, isn’t it? I just did that very thing with CapOne. The only saving grace is that once you create the temp card with their definitely-not-spyware web browser extension, you can uninstall it completely and manage the card through the website. I’ve installed it, visited a single site, and uninstalled it several times so far and it seems to get the job done.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#259

I observed the same with Google's "Smart" display ads. I ran a campaign for a couple of weeks and watched all of the traffic with HotJar. The first fishy thing was 99.9% of the traffic came from foreign countries despite the target being US/Canada. When I saw the targeting wasn't effective, I even set up specific geographic exclusions for every country != US/Canada and still the traffic was from mostly underdeveloped…

I ran ads with Google again recently after a long hiatus. Literally 0 conversions (free signup) but ads on FB/Reddit/Others performed fine. Just 100% worthless traffic. Google has gone very wrong.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#260
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is the case then why does LI even have the "I find this ad annoying or not interesting". I thought the whole point of that option was to counteract a company that the user is explicitly not interested in from winning the ad auction. If the option doesn't work than that seems like an issue on the part of LI, either dishonesty (pretending it does something when it doesn't) or incompetence. Given the company we'…

You must be thinking that the button is meant to improve your ad experience. All ad platforms care about are fulfilling their obligation of serving ads. They claim they are targeted. Again, that's not for your enjoyment. It's a way to get advertisers to spend more money. You clicking the button says you're an actual human like the 'unsubscribe' link in spam while being a placebo. Am I cynical, maybe? Am I wrong, ??

Ah that makes sense. I doubt you're wrong.
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