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Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

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Re: Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

#21

Post by wongarsu »

VladVladikoff wrote: post #10
bitwize wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably a verified click is a click traceable to an attested human identity through your government's soon-to-be-implemented "KYC to use a computer or smartphone" policy.

The ad fraud could still come from malware running on KYC’d computers, while the owner of that computer is blissfully unaware.

Just lock down the OS so we can send a reliable signal whether the click originated from a real hardware input device or was software-driven

Oh, you programmed your Arduino to present itself as a mouse via USB, so you can do automated click-fraud that way? No problem, only certified hardware allowed as input devices from now on

I'm not sure what we are going to do about robot arms using touchscreens, or little devices that trick mouse sensors into thinking it's moving. Maybe continuous fingerprint reading?

Re: Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

#22

Post by OroPla »

toss1 wrote: post #11

Surprising it is taking advertisers this long to wake up, considering the decades I've been reading articles on HN about the massive fraud rates from entire fraud ecosystems. The saying in marketing used to be: "Half of all marketing dollars are wasted, but we never know which half". In the internet, it seems to be more like "90% are wasted" and literally never even get a human impression, nevermind a human click-thr…

The entire internet ad business has never made sense to me. Have you ever clicked any of the links? The landing pages were always confusing and not at all designed for you to engage with them.

I used to think, okay, I guess they don't care about visiting their sites and just want to get eyeball impressions to stay relevant in the cultural zeitgeist.

Then I learned how ads worked in the print industry, where it is assumed in the calculation that every magazine changes hands through at least twenty people who all look at all ads. So maybe everyone was just already used to getting screwed over paying for ads.

Then there's the fear of missing out angle. People paying for ads don't know whether it makes a different, but are too scared to find out. I also once read about a small business that took that risk and found out not paying for internet ads made no difference whatsoever.

Maybe it's time for an entire country to decide to just straight up outlaw all internet ads for a couple years and force everyone to find out what happens.

Re: Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

#23

Post by WarmWash »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #19
ashleyn wrote: post #12

Seems like important context behind the push for things like Web Environment Integrity (similar in concept to "trusted computing" if you were around for that controversy in the early 2000s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing If your service providers are funded by ads, and ads begin demanding "verified clicks", your service providers are greatly in…

BTW Google had another go at forcing Treacherous Computing on people. This time it's a reCAPTCHA successor, which requires the user to scan a QR code using a Google/Apple owned phone.

People need to just take responsibility and pay for shit.

Like if you don't want to be kicked around, you need to be the one kicking.

People interpret business as hostility because they cannot conceive of the idea that they themselves should pay for a service.

Re: Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

#24

Post by blooalien »

wongarsu wrote: post #21
VladVladikoff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ad fraud could still come from malware running on KYC’d computers, while the owner of that computer is blissfully unaware.

Just lock down the OS so we can send a reliable signal whether the click originated from a real hardware input device or was software-driven Oh, you programmed your Arduino to present itself as a mouse via USB, so you can do automated click-fraud that way? No problem, only certified hardware allowed as input devices from now on I'm not sure what we are going to do about robot arms using touchscreens, or little device…

> I'm not sure what we are going to do about robot arms using touchscreens, or little devices that trick mouse sensors into thinking it's moving. Maybe continuous fingerprint reading?

Heartbeat monitor paired to your mouse's fingerprint readers under the mouse buttons while your webcam verifies your Face ID?

"Approved live human detected: Please spit in DNA analyzer to verify."

Re: Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

#25

Post by pjc50 »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #15
pjc50 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Please drink verification can" (Black Mirror)

Not Black Mirror, 2013 vintage 4chan.

I stand corrected. It seems like the inspiration was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits , but that doesn't have the same link to advertising. Although it still looks alarmingly prescient.

Re: Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

#26

Post by [deleted] »

OroPla wrote: post #22
toss1 wrote: post #11

Surprising it is taking advertisers this long to wake up, considering the decades I've been reading articles on HN about the massive fraud rates from entire fraud ecosystems. The saying in marketing used to be: "Half of all marketing dollars are wasted, but we never know which half". In the internet, it seems to be more like "90% are wasted" and literally never even get a human impression, nevermind a human click-thr…

The entire internet ad business has never made sense to me. Have you ever clicked any of the links? The landing pages were always confusing and not at all designed for you to engage with them. I used to think, okay, I guess they don't care about visiting their sites and just want to get eyeball impressions to stay relevant in the cultural zeitgeist. Then I learned how ads worked in the print industry, where it is ass…

[deleted]

Re: Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

#27

Post by jabroni_salad »

WarmWash wrote: post #23
CodesInChaos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTW Google had another go at forcing Treacherous Computing on people. This time it's a reCAPTCHA successor, which requires the user to scan a QR code using a Google/Apple owned phone.

People need to just take responsibility and pay for shit. Like if you don't want to be kicked around, you need to be the one kicking. People interpret business as hostility because they cannot conceive of the idea that they themselves should pay for a service.

I feel like it is actually payment pages where I see these kinds of bouncers the most, though. click fraud is inefficient, but payment fraud can actually ruin a business.

Re: Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

#28

Post by zarzavat »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #19
ashleyn wrote: post #12

Seems like important context behind the push for things like Web Environment Integrity (similar in concept to "trusted computing" if you were around for that controversy in the early 2000s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing If your service providers are funded by ads, and ads begin demanding "verified clicks", your service providers are greatly in…

BTW Google had another go at forcing Treacherous Computing on people. This time it's a reCAPTCHA successor, which requires the user to scan a QR code using a Google/Apple owned phone.

> This time it's a reCAPTCHA successor, which requires the user to scan a QR code using a Google/Apple owned phone.

I can't wait for the future where I need a burner phone and a robotic arm just to browse the internet.

Re: Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

#29

Post by wolvoleo »

Tbh I'm all in favour of ad fraud because it undermines the whole industry which I'd love to see disappear.

I love running ad nauseam which instead of hiding ads clicks them all in an invisible browser, making advertisers pay for ads I didn't even see. And devaluing the entire concept. I wish ublock origin did this too, it's so common that it would totally screw up entire ecosystems. The number of people running ad nauseam is unfortunately minimal.

And no, I'm not doing anything illegal. I can do whatever I want with the content on my computer. Ad fraud is a term invented for websites creating artificial clicks so they get paid, the end user doesn't benefit from it.

Re: Advertisers Could Soon Demand 'Verified Clicks'

#30

Post by voidsnax »

toss1 wrote: post #11

Surprising it is taking advertisers this long to wake up, considering the decades I've been reading articles on HN about the massive fraud rates from entire fraud ecosystems. The saying in marketing used to be: "Half of all marketing dollars are wasted, but we never know which half". In the internet, it seems to be more like "90% are wasted" and literally never even get a human impression, nevermind a human click-thr…

Open web display inventory is a mess. Nearly entirely fraudulent. Every person in the supply chain for open web display inventory, sometimes even including the Chief Marketing Officer of the firm purchasing the ads, is incentivized to turn a blind eye to fraudulent impressions. Fraud is ultimately paid for by shareholders and owners.

This is because everyone in the supply chain is paid per impression, so they don't have any real incentive to root out (or even discover/report) fraud unless the buyer is leaning on them to do so. An unsophisticated firm looking primarily at reach and impressions as key performance indicators sees those KPIs inflated by fraudulent impressions, so even the purchaser isn't really incentivized to discover fraud in those instances. And if you suddenly decide you do care about fraud after not caring about it previously, you're faced with the prospect of having to report to your stakeholders that the metrics you've been giving them have been bullshit for years.

If you're looking at conversions as your key performance indicator then you do care about fraud and will lean on your ad buyer to discover and reduce it, or else just avoid open web display inventory entirely and buy exclusively on platform properties like LinkedIn or Instagram.

There have been various efforts to reduce fraud for a long, long time. Obviously nothing so far has really comprehensively worked. But there are some people in the industry who do make their money and earn their reputations as fraud-fighters, and they continue pushing new solutions. If the fraud problem for open web display inventory could actually be solved it would probably result in a bonanza for anyone positioned to capitalize on a fraud-free supply chain, so some people are incentivized to chase the dream (or at least convince others that they're earnestly chasing the dream).

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