Dr. Fou - FouAnalytics Profile picture
Aug 24, 2019 10 tweets 2 min read Read on X
"Uber and Phunware's unredacted lawsuit. Oh boy."
reddit.com/r/adops/commen…

Every single detail below is the same as every other company committing ad fraud, but labeled "valid" bc of failed detection by verification companies.
Phunware is a public company
PHUN (NASDAQ)
"In order to defraud Uber, ... Defendants engaged in a multi-year fraud scheme, which among other laws, violated the federal criminal wire fraud, interstate transportation of funds
obtained by fraud, and racketeering statutes, as well as common law fraud."
"Defendants purportedly purchased ad placements on behalf of Uber, which were in fact not real ads, were illegitimate ads, and/or were prohibited ads, such as “auto-redirects” or ads placed on prohibited sites such as pornographic websites."
"Defendants instead caused to be written, wrote and ran masking software known as “scripts” to alter the names of the sites or apps where the ads allegedly appeared in order to trick Uber into believing the advertising was legitimate."
"Defendants caused to be provided and provided so called “transparency” information to Fetch, knowing it would be submitted to Uber, containing false information as to where the ads allegedly appear."
"Defendants engaged in similar mobile advertising fraud with at least three other nationally known companies."
"Phunware is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Austin, Texas. Phunware formerly was known as “Tapit.” The Uber account was Phunware’s largest single source of revenue."
Tons more detail in the lawsuit document, read it for yourself. Practically every detail shows you how ad fraud is STILL being perpetrated on unprecedented scale.

This is 2019 folks. Digital ad spend is at its highest point ever; and so is ad fraud - both in dollars and rate of
Phunware, Inc. is registered under the ticker NASDAQ:PHUN . Their stock opened with $10.00 in its Dec 27, 2018 IPO.

Investors before the IPO vs poor suckers who bought the stock after the IPO

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More from @acfou

Dec 21, 2022
So much bad stuff in here. Worth a read

investigation by Craig Silverman lnkd.in/eVDyfqbd
note that DESPITE paying for all that craptech fraud detection and brand safety detection tech,

ahem @mikezaneis @tag_today @safe_brands

all of this was still happening.

and it was uncovered and documented by an outside reporter @CraigSilverman through hard work
@propublica @CraigSilverman @patiencehaggin

TAG Certifications are worse than utterly useless; they trick advertisers into thinking Google is "brand safe" because they have the Brand Safety Certification

it covers up the money continuing to flow to piracy, porn, etc.
Read 9 tweets
Mar 23, 2022
2017 "oopsies"

In latest metrics glitch, Facebook says it overcharged some advertisers
cbsnews.com/news/in-latest…
2020 "oopsies," nothing happened

Facebook’s Latest Error Shakes Advertisers’ Confidence
wsj.com/amp/articles/f…
2022 "oopsies" nothing happened

wsj.com/articles/usa-t…
Read 8 tweets
Mar 23, 2022
Fraud detection that doesn't detect fraud
forbes.com/sites/augustin…
How two small businesses beat ad fraud themselves WITHOUT paying for expensive fraud detection
linkedin.com/pulse/how-two-…
How To Find Bot Traffic With Google Analytics yourself
forbes.com/sites/augustin…
Read 4 tweets
Jan 23, 2022
yes, there will be a catastrophic domino effect on ad tech companies, including public ones

basically, it's clear some have all their eggs in one basket; the basket is heading toward catastrophic failure

more evidence of widespread fraud is being docume…lnkd.in/d7UFJbne
note that bad guys love buying up small, struggling publishers that have real (but small) human audiences

that provides the perfect cover for fraudulent activities

they takeover the formerly legit site, and juice the numbers for various forms of fraud to make money
same thing on mobile apps -- bad guys buy up legit, but small apps and juice them

@CraigSilverman wrote this up years ago

buzzfeednews.com/article/craigs…
Read 5 tweets
Nov 17, 2021
I drew this chart in 2015, showing 2/3 of digital ad dollars being siphoned out of the ecosystem into the pockets of bad guys (with the help of adtech intermediaries)
there's not enough humans on earth and hours in a day for them to consume so much media to generate the quantities of impressions (by one estimate 15 trillion bid requests per week)

2/3 of the impressions are "something else" (not humans)
bad guys are so optimized now, they dont even need to load webpages or even the ads themselves (to save time and bandwidth)
Read 9 tweets
Nov 16, 2021
advertising is the wrong answer

if ads paid the bills, publishers are incentivized to generate more pageviews/imps to get more revenue - divisive and fake content always generate more pageviews

it's really hard to "hold the line" on quality journalism when it means less revs
at this point, nobody wants to be responsible for "the good of society"

because everyone is too busy making more money for themselves -- i.e. capitalism

quality journalism doesn't pay right now, because no one values it -- neither advertiser, nor consumer
advertisers want cheap ads to buy, so they don't buy much from real publishers

consumers get their news through FB and Google News, read just the headline and never click to the full article

young consumers watch funny tiktok videos 6in from their faces 22 hrs a day
Read 4 tweets

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