Botlab

Last updated
Botlab
FormationMarch 30, 2015;8 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."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Email spam</span> Unsolicited electronic advertising by e-mail

Email spam, also referred to as junk email, spam mail, or simply spam, is unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email (spamming). The name comes from a Monty Python sketch in which the name of the canned pork product Spam is ubiquitous, unavoidable, and repetitive. Email spam has steadily grown since the early 1990s, and by 2014 was estimated to account for around 90% of total email traffic.

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. AdSense is a participant in the AdChoices program, so AdSense ads typically include the triangle-shaped AdChoices icon. This program also operates on HTTP cookies. In 2021, over 38.3 million websites use AdSense.

<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, or videos to web users. It can place ads both in the results of search engines like Google Search and on non-search websites, mobile apps, and videos. 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 which 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.

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">F5, Inc.</span> U.S. information technology company

F5, Inc. is an American technology company specializing in application security, multi-cloud management, online fraud prevention, application delivery networking (ADN), application availability & performance, network security, and access & authorization.

<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.

AdBlock is an ad-blocking browser extension for Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Microsoft Edge. AdBlock allows users to prevent page elements, such as advertisements, from being displayed. It is free to download and use, and it includes optional donations to the developers. The AdBlock extension was created on December 8, 2009, which is the day that supports for extensions was added to Google Chrome. It was one of the first Google Chrome extensions.

A click farm is a form of click fraud where a large group of low-paid workers are hired to click on paid advertising links for the click fraudster. The workers click the links, surf the target website for a period of time, and possibly sign up for newsletters prior to clicking another link. For many of these workers, clicking on enough ads per day may increase their revenue substantially and may also be an alternative to other types of work. It is extremely difficult for an automated filter to detect this simulated traffic as fake because the visitor behavior appears exactly the same as that of an actual legitimate visitor.

Ghostery is a free and open-source privacy and security-related browser extension and mobile browser application. Since February 2017, it has been owned by the German company Cliqz International GmbH. The code was originally developed by David Cancel and associates.

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, 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.

ironSource Ltd. is an Israeli software company that focuses on developing technologies for app monetization and distribution, with its core products focused on the app economy.

<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.

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.

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. "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. ↑ "Google charges for YouTube ads even when viewed by robots". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  11. ↑ "Digital advertising: Brands versus bots". www.ft.com. 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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