Polygraph is warning advertisers about an internet scam which is stealing tens of billions of dollars every year.
The outfit’s marketing boss said that click fraud had become a billion dollar crime
“Advertisers are paying advertising networks to display their ads across the internet. Little do they realise that many of the ‘people’ clicking on the ads are bots.”
According to Vanes, criminals are using bots as they can accurately simulate a real person clicking on an advertisement.
“Modern bots are virtually indistinguishable from people. The scammers are creating bots which visit their websites, click on the ads, and then navigate around the advertisers’ websites, often generating fake conversions such as filling out a leads form or adding items to a shopping cart.
“Unless advertisers are trying to detect click fraud, they won’t know, and can’t prove, they’re being defrauded by criminals. To make matters worse, many advertising networks make little to no effort to detect click fraud, meaning the scammers are able to get away with their crime without risk of being caught.”
