Thread by @acfou

by @megancgraham

cnbc.com/2020/05/17/bro…

https://twitter.com/acfou/status/1262015449706967040

take the experiment that @megancgraham just ran and multiply that by 1000X and you get a sense of the PERVASIVENESS of ad fraud

slideshare.net/augustinefou/f…

AUTO-GENERATE websites

different types of content used by fake sites for fraud
- plagiarized text, images from other sites
- remixed plagiarized content to avoid getting caught
- completely fake content made by algo
- content that is SEO'd to get free organic traffic

where to buy BILLIONS of pageviews, with traffic that will all get marked as "valid" because fraud verification tech can't detect anything wrong with it

slideshare.net/augustinefou/d…

1000's more like these, just google "buy real human traffic"

as easy as 1, 2, 3
slideshare.net/augustinefou/a…

fake local news sites operating in broad daylight for years, and continue to

buzzfeednews.com/article/craigs…

and look at some of these domains

https://twitter.com/acfou/status/1261688514527277058

misspelled domains are particularly hilarious

https://twitter.com/acfou/status/1261637454152507392

just to be clear pre-bid filtering, IVT detection, brand safety tech, etc.

pretty much can't detect and stop most of this stuff. and even when it catches and blocks a domain, bad guys have 1000's more like apppliednutrition.com or apliednutition

slideshare.net/augustinefou/d…

TL;DR
- register domain, fully automated - $7.99 on GoDaddy
- set up websites, fully automated - wordpress templates
- put fake content, fully automated - scraped content
- apply to exchanges, fully automated - pick "easy" ones
- buy traffic, fully automated - 1000s of sellers

plagiarized content is not the main issue here; it's the ease with which anyone, a CNBC reporter, could set up a fake site and get it approved by exchanges

also related to what @megancgraham reported on previously, re: piracy sites monetizing similarly

cnbc.com/2019/10/20/net…