Botlab

Last updated
Botlab
FormationMarch 30, 2015;9 years ago (2015-03-30)
Founded at Helsinki, Boston
Type 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
Purposeresearch and development related to ad fraud, user rights violations and other malicious practices in the advertising technology supply-chain.
Key people
Mikko Kotila, Amit Phansalkar
Website http://www.botlab.io

Botlab (previously known as botlab.io) is a non-profit, volunteer based research foundation focused on research, publication and open-source development related with ad fraud, malvertising, privacy violations and other malicious practices in the advertising supported internet. [1] Botlab's global volunteer network works towards the goal of more transparent and more secure internet.

Contents

Media Coverage

A paper authored by Botlab, Compendium of Ad Fraud Knowledge [2] has been widely covered in the media [3] [4] [5] [6] including a Financial Times cover story. [7] The paper is a collaboration with World Federation of Advertisers, whose members collectively represent 90% of the world's US$700 advertising budgets. WFA published the paper as an official guideline document to its members [8] for understanding and countering ad fraud. [9]

Botlab researchers were featured in two additional Financial Times cover stories during 2015 and 2016 [10] one of which was Big Read [11] , a major editorial piece of the week in Financial Times print. In addition Botlab's work and commentary have been widely featured in ad industry press, [12] [13] [14] events and social media.

Research

During 2016 Botlab's Ad Fraud Council was the author of World Federation of Advertisers guidance on ad fraud to its members titled Compendium of Ad Fraud Knowledge. Botlab also contributed as co-author to Independent auditing of online display advertising campaigns, a research paper accepted to Hotnets academic conference in 2016 [15] and was a major contributor in Entropy Method for Detecting Invalid Traffic at Scale, [16] a paper introducing an open source method for large scale detection of invalid traffic.

Open Source Contributions

During 2015 and 2016 Botlab made available three open source solutions focused on detection and prevention of advertising fraud:

Collaboration with Trade associations

In addition to being listed as one of the partners [20] by World Federation of Advertisers, since Botlab's founding in early 2015 its Principal Mikko Kotila acted as the co-chair for I-COM's Data Science Board, [21] I-COM is a global trade body backed by 100 associations in 40 countries, [22] today, exploring the creation of business value from Marketing Data & Measurement.

Related Research Articles

The National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) was a not-for-profit, US-based organization, that described itself as a "private nonprofit, voluntary health agency that focuses upon health misinformation, fraud, and quackery as public health problems."

Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advertisements are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google. They can generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis. Google beta-tested a cost-per-action service, but discontinued it in October 2008 in favor of a DoubleClick offering. In Q1 2014, Google earned US$3.4 billion, or 22% of total revenue, through Google AdSense. In 2021, more than 38 million websites used AdSense. It is a participant in the AdChoices program, so AdSense ads typically include the triangle-shaped AdChoices icon. This program also operates on HTTP cookies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Ads</span> Online advertising platform owned by Google

Google Ads is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, and videos to web users. It can place ads in the results of search engines like Google Search, mobile apps, videos, and on non-search websites. Services are offered under a pay-per-click (PPC) pricing model.

Click fraud is a type of fraud that occurs on the Internet in pay per click (PPC) online advertising. In this type of advertising, the owners of websites that post the ads are paid based on how many site visitors click on the ads. Fraud occurs when a person, automated script, computer program or an auto clicker imitates a legitimate user of a web browser, clicking on such an ad without having an actual interest in the target of the ad's link in order to increase revenue. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud.

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the ad is clicked.

Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising, and mobile advertising. Advertisements are increasingly being delivered via automated software systems operating across multiple websites, media services and platforms, known as programmatic advertising.

Pay to surf (PTS) is an online business model which gained popularity in the late 1990’s and experienced a significant decline following the dot-com crash. PTS companies advertised their main advantage as sharing the advertising revenue with their user base in a form of rewards for watching promotional content over the web. In order to participate, users would need to install software that tracked their browsing activities and displayed targeted advertisements. Ultimately, users receive financial compensation for their time spent browsing the web.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising. SEM may incorporate search engine optimization (SEO), which adjusts or rewrites website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages to enhance pay per click (PPC) listings and increase the Call to action (CTA) on the website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advertising Association</span>

The Advertising Association (AA) is a trade association representing advertisers, agencies, media and research services in the UK advertising industry. Its stated aim is to promote the “…role, rights and responsibilities of advertising and its impact on individuals, the economy and society". Its chief executive is Stephen Woodford.

In-game advertising (IGA) is advertising in electronic games. IGA differs from advergames, which refers to games specifically made to advertise a product. The IGA industry is large and growing.

The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) is a global association for multinational marketers and national advertiser associations. Its membership is made up of over 140 of the world's top brands and national associations in more than 60 markets. WFA's aim is to champion effective and sustainable marketing communications worldwide.

Adbot, Inc. was a privately held Internet advertising company in Chicago owned and operated by James R. Frith, Jr. The company was a pioneer in the delivery of display advertising on the Internet and was extant from April 1997 to December 1997, at which time it ceased operations due to a legal disputes with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Real-time bidding</span> Automated auction for advertisements

Real-time bidding (RTB) is a means by which advertising inventory is bought and sold on a per-impression basis, via instantaneous programmatic auction, similar to financial markets. With real-time bidding, online advertising buyers bid on an impression and, if the bid is won, the buyer's ad is instantly displayed on the publisher's site. Real-time bidding lets advertisers manage and optimize ads from multiple Ad networks, allowing them to create and launch advertising campaigns, prioritize networks, and allocate percentages of unsold inventory, known as backfill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Rushton</span>

Anthony Rushton is a British tech entrepreneur and the co-founder and chief executive officer of Telemetry, an online video advertising security and optimisation firm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telemetry (company)</span>

Telemetry was an independent online advertising security and optimization firm, with offices in London and New York City. In January 2017, Telemetry shut down amid declining revenues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheetah Mobile</span> Chinese mobile internet company

Cheetah Mobile Inc (猎豹移动公司) is a Chinese mobile internet company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Beijing.

TubeMogul is an enterprise software company for brand advertising.

Ad fraud is concerned with the practice of fraudulently representing online advertisement impressions, clicks, conversion or data events in order to generate revenue. Ad-frauds are particularly popular among cybercriminals.

Taboola, Inc. is a publicly traded advertising and technology company headquartered in New York City. It provides "content recommendation" adverts on its partner websites.

Brand safety is a set of measures that aim to protect the image and reputation of brands from the negative or damaging influence of questionable or inappropriate content when advertising online.

References

  1. ↑ "leading source of insights and understanding about advertising fraud". botlab.io | ad fraud research. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  2. ↑ "Compendium of ad fraud knowledge for media investors" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-09.
  3. ↑ "REPORT: Ad fraud is 'second only to the drugs trade' as a source of income for organized crime". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  4. ↑ "WFA warns that ad fraud will hit $50bn a year by 2025". The Drum. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  5. ↑ Kulp, Patrick (9 June 2016). "Ad fraud could become the second biggest organized crime enterprise behind the drug trade". Mashable. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  6. ↑ "WFA: Without Changes, Ad Fraud May Reach $150 Billion Annually". www.mediapost.com. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  7. ↑ "'Endemic' fraud threatens digital advertising budgets". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  8. ↑ "WFA issues first advice for combatting ad fraud | Global News | WFA". www.wfanet.org. Archived from the original on 2017-01-10. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  9. ↑ "Press releases | Press | WFA". www.wfanet.org. Archived from the original on 2017-01-08. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  10. ↑ Cookson, Robert (22 September 2015). "Google charges for YouTube ads even when viewed by robots". Financial Times. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  11. ↑ Cookson, Robert (18 July 2016). "Digital advertising: Brands versus bots". Financial Times. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  12. ↑ "Mikko Kotila Discuss the Ad Fraud Ecosystem & What the Industry Can Do to Address the Problem | ExchangeWire.com". www.exchangewire.com. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  13. ↑ Nyman, Hilde. "- Annonsesvindelen vil eksplodere". kampanje.com. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  14. ↑ "'Major intervention from advertisers is needed to deal with fraud'". The Drum. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  15. ↑ "HotNets 2016: Home Page". conferences.sigcomm.org. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  16. ↑ "Entropy Method for Detecting Invalid Traffic at Scale" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-10.
  17. ↑ "botlabio/deny-hosting-IP". GitHub. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  18. ↑ "SiteMindOpen/SiteMind". GitHub. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  19. ↑ "NAMELES – open source ad fraud detection". nameles.org. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  20. ↑ "Project Reconnect | Towards better marketing". www.project-reconnect.com. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  21. ↑ "Data Science Board". I-COM. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  22. ↑ "Who we are". I-COM. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
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