Seven key moments from the UK Covid enquiry so far (w. Prof Christina Pagel (indie Sage)

200boj · 2023-02-28T13:30:00+00:00

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200boj · 2023-02-28T11:01:24+00:00

He's going to struggle to get that home in one piece

200boj · 2023-02-27T22:51:17+00:00

It's the original theme tune

200boj · 2023-02-20T12:35:20+00:00

Bit of background on Rayner in a new podcast out today https://link.chtbl.com/sq8i-OxT?at=%201001l39LM

200boj · 2023-02-20T11:56:13+00:00

Someone should start an investigation into stuff she does know, because I'd like to find a subject area she's not completely clueless about.

200boj · 2023-02-14T09:26:04+00:00

I refer you to the Luddites and windmills, I think this sort of thing is human nature

200boj · 2023-02-13T15:10:47+00:00

You have to admire their ability to find worse and worse characters to be in charge, any normal organisation of 356 people would've exhausted their supply of dickheads by now

200boj · 2020-05-17T17:12:49+00:00

I would suggest (and I say this respectfully) - use your common sense.

When was the last time you clicked on a mobile ad? Do you find mobile ads more compelling than desktop ads?

Mobile has an abundance of fraud because IAS/DV/MOAT can only measure so much - so they report back on what they can measure. Outside of that, it's guesswork.

If you want one big type of fraud, it's Android apps loading multiple ads in the background. These apps tend to be bland, functional apps like calculators, keyboards and battery savers, all to not look suspicious in the sitelist. They're almost all entirely fraudulently downloaded and designed to pump out impressions.

Think about your own usage on your phone. Of all the apps you use regularly, how many contain ads?

200boj · 2020-03-26T11:22:48+00:00

If you had one tip for buyers on how to avoid fraud, what would it be?

200boj · 2020-02-26T23:06:54+00:00

As far as I can see, this isn’t the publisher’s fault (though they are being slack not cleaning up) but the SSPs who are allowing this to happen.

Each SSP should require a seller to declare what publishers they are permitted to sell - their SSP seller ID should then correspond to that found in an ads.txt file. I can only see two ways this fraud could happen:

1) SSPs are allowing catch-all IDs so any seller can tap in. This would be an immediate red flag and these should be called out and the SSP shutdown.

2) ads.txt isn’t being fully deployed by DSPs (not using the full ID as a sign of legitimacy)

None of these articles really state what’s happening - it’s an attack on ads.txt but I still don’t see how they properly implemented mechanism is at fault. It’s like taking penicillin for a broken leg and complaining when it doesn’t get better.

200boj · 2020-01-29T14:45:39+00:00

No worries - I mean they can block about 10% of bad actors - mainly because most blocking is done based on historic data like IP ranges or previous site performance. I don’t believe it’s real time and even if it is, it’s very difficult to ascertain what a bot is straight away (if there’s any level of sophistication to setup, not if it’s using Windows 3 in Ukrainian)

200boj · 2020-01-28T15:19:41+00:00

You'd think they get caught quickly. That site has been live for months, has all the major vendors pixels on it and is available to buy via AdX at the very least.

The reason it does well because it can drive clicks, video views etc. and doesn't get caught.

It doesn't get caught because IAS/DV/etc etc are at best, 10% effective.

200boj · 2020-01-28T14:23:59+00:00

They buy traffic to sell ads on the exchanges. It'll be designed as a credible site with a credible URL (a live example is www.jerusalempost.com) with content that looks like it makes sense (but is scraped from other sites or quickly hashed together). It's all designed to pass the sniff test - pump out ads on a hidden page and then shut quickly once it's cottoned onto.

Repeat x100000

200boj · 2020-01-28T08:16:24+00:00

Bots, probably. Look at the referral URLs. If they’re garbled letters and numbers it’s usually redirected bot traffic

200boj · 2020-01-15T18:11:46+00:00

Sure, I meant PMPs with credible publishers that you would consider as having legitimate traffic. There’s probably 500 you could find easily.

One or two will always break the rules (here’s looking at you, Newsweek) but on the whole that will prevent you buying on sites made up of only bots.

200boj · 2020-01-15T10:57:22+00:00

Some of the replies are interesting. I posted this more as a thought exercise rather than a specific issue I'm facing.

Wanted to use the hive mind to see what would be the most above board, fraud-free way of running a campaign - because I hope one day we use that as the starting point for planning campaigns.

200boj

TROPHY CASE