The digital advertising industry is taking a big step toward combating ad fraud. Unlike most other actions that have been taken in recent months, however, this one is much more ‘low tech.’ The industry is setting up a blacklist for websites that have been associated with online ad fraud in the past. Over time, this will create a great list that advertisers, marketers, and ad agencies can refer to when setting up new campaigns.
The new program is being created by The Trustworthy Accountability Group, which is an industry organization dedicated to helping to clean up the fraud in the digital advertising industry.
When completed, the new system will maintain a list of domains and computer programs that have experienced ‘non-human’ traffic. Different companies from throughout the industry will supply their existing knowledge about domains and traffic to create the new ‘Fraud Threat List.’ Companies can then cross reference this list any time they need.
The system has already been in place as a pilot with major companies including AOL, Yahoo and Facebook participating. The group’s Chief Executive, Mike Zaneis said, “We’re trying to make it as hard as possible for criminals to profit by sharing intelligence.”
While this is not going to solve the issue completely since the bad players can quickly and easily adjust their operations by moving to other domains, this system will add one more layer of difficulty to their operations.
To combat the frequent moves by fraudsters this system will, “be as automated as possible to update on short turnaround. We’re confident we can keep pace with criminal practices,” according to Zaneis.
While full details of the program are still being worked out it seems that this program will undoubtedly be a key tool in the fight against advertising fraud today and long into the future. As more and more companies join, it will continue to become more and more effective.
