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“35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

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Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#271

Post by TwoBit »

cbsmith wrote: post #214

I gotta say... this is an incredibly naive analysis. To demonstrate Reddit Ads isn't doing click fraud protection, you should try to generate a fraudulent click yourself. Looking at what is getting through and finding that a lot of it as easily identifiable as fraudulent is NOT a valid signal. It's incredibly likely that there are far more bots that are being blocked and that the bots that are getting through have in…

OK but doesn't OP demostrate that the same IP clicked 15 times in a short period of time and he was charged for all of them? How could that be complicated to handle?

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#272

Post by TwoBit »

solumos wrote: post #155
loosetypes wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I unintentionally click ads far too often. Where I clicked while the page is still loading. But by the time my click is registered, an ad has loaded in the target location. I suppose you could say loading ads asynchronously improves the user experience, but my skeptical experience is they intentionally load in high activity localities. Every time it feels like a bait and switch.

That's a super common dark pattern with clickbait sites. It's definitely on purpose (in a lot of places).

I wish web browsers were designed such that they never dynamically move text that's currently visible.

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#273

Post by commonturtle »

Does it really matter if they are fraudulent? Most advertisers measure (and are willing to pay for) conversions, not clicks. So even if there are lots of fake clicks, the number of purchases wouldn't change.

If advertisers have to pay for more than their conversion rates justify they will stop advertising on reddit which forces reddit to solve the fake clicks problem.

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#274

Post by temp0826 »

skyyler wrote: post #252
Scoundreller wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was visiting distant family ~10 years ago in a small Yugoslav village. They had ~2mbit fixed wireless (w00t), but when I installed Adblock and dialed up their CRT to 85hz from 60, they didn’t even notice anything changed .

Adblock is one thing, but why would anyone notice a 15 fps increase?

Refresh rate != frame rate. Maybe you’re too young to have ever used a crt at 60hz.

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#275

Post by chillwaves »

jamiequint wrote: post #192
alexggordon wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't contribute to the discussion, besides the incredibly naive viewpoint that allowing ads is the only way to support to a website.

Do you believe that people providing a service should not be able to choose how to charge for it in any other context outside of websites?

Do you believe the person who owns the computer has a right to how that webpage is displayed?

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#276

Post by stevesearer »

jlund-molfese wrote: post #251
stevesearer wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my site we follow a couple of the practices you mention: - No dynamic ad content (we do allow geo-ip targeting for continents and countries, but this is using a self-hosted maxmind list) - Half-month or Monthly advertising time slots In addition to those practices, we also do the following: - Self-host our ads - Sell our own ads and have direct relationship with the ad buyers - No animated advertising (only static…

Do you have any thoughts on the financial impact of self-hosting vs using something like Google Ads? I'd assume you mostly made that choice for ethical reasons, right? I noticed that my ad blocker doesn't block your ads, and like you mentioned, they don't interrupt the browsing experience. They're almost like those in a high-quality paper magazine!

We initially used Google Ads, but phased them out 6-7 years ago because the ads were lower quality than we wanted and missing a big chunk of the ad sale due to Google's fees.

If I remember correctly, we used Google and self-hosted for a while, but eventually it made financial sense to replace the Google Ad slots with self-hosted so we were able to capture the full ad sale.

Several years on, I am really happy with the decision and it is great to not be subject to the whims of an ad marketplace we have no control over.

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#277

Post by chillwaves »

jamiequint wrote: post #190
staplers wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people just don't want malicious code being run on their computers.

What malicious code are first-party ad networks running on your computer?

It's dishonest to pretend that ads are not a significant and relevant attack vector.

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#278

Post by unionpivo »

jamiequint wrote: post #185
koverda wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I unblock ads on sites I find useful, use frequently and want to actively support. If the ads aren't obnoxious, they stay unblocked. Sites wouldn't exist without the users, so they should keep in mind user experience when deciding how to monetize.

It's a fundamentally selfish viewpoint that you instead of the site you're using should decide how you consume what the site offers, a point of view that would be considered patently outrageous in many other contexts. Many people here confuse such a thing being possible with such a thing being morally justifiable.

No offense, but to some of us whole promise of internet is to empower users.

I would be perfectly willing to let all the sites that can't survive without ads die.

Internet would be smaller but still enormously powerful tool.

And most of the problem people complain about web and internet today (fake news, social bubbles, , ...) came out of ad tech and its desire to optimize for engagement and tracking.

We cant put genie back into the bottle but I can use ad blockers to at least mitigate some small amount of damage.

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#279

Post by dheera »

jamiequint wrote: post #270
dheera wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For eBay and Amazon, I consider that consent to be a malicious term, especially for these websites which are near monopolies. Even though I hit "agree" to their attempt to collect data, I still will instruct my devices to not actually give certain data to them, and instruct my devices to not display ads that are targeted based on cross-business shared data. And of course there are the million other sites you don't ne…

I mostly agree with you on sites with no ToS or sites where you're not a registered user. I think that the concept that a ToS is considered by you to be malicious, yet you agree with it anyway in order to receive services is where the problem lies. That seems intentionally deceptive to me. If you disagree with the ToS why still use the site?

> If you disagree with the ToS why still use the site?

Because I still need to buy stuff?

eBay is a monopoly in online auctions and secondhand goods from non-local locations. I don't have a choice. This isn't 1980 where you probably had a lot of options for auctions that didn't track your user data. Those auctions are largely gone.

Amazon is a near monopoly in e-commerce in that there are lots of things I buy that are more or less only available on Amazon, or perhaps Walmart which also a similarly malicious ToS.

Either way, I actually buy stuff from these websites. Probably upwards of $10K in purchases per year, at least. It makes zero sense for them to kick me off for thwarting their user tracking and data sharing attempts. It would be a lose-lose for them to do that.

There are a lot of things a ToS can reasonably require, for example, setting limits on how much you are allowed to use the service, and limits on how you may use data obtained in the course of using the service. I respect those. But when it comes to how my data is shared externally with other companies, I think it crosses the line for a ToS to require that of a user to use the service. In fact, I think there should be legislation requiring it to be a clear opt-in on part of the user, and I would go so far as to say that a default opt-in setting should be illegal.

Re: “35-50% of clicks on Reddit Ads are fraudulent”

#280

Post by lovehashbrowns »

I'm pretty surprised the aws bot got through. I used to be responsible for detecting fraud for ads in the past and we had access to a blacklist that likely would include a lot of these ips. If we didn't do things like this, advertisers would actually stop working with us.
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