An entire ecosystem set up to support fraud. There are no laws against ad fraud; but other laws may apply. Time to take a closer look.

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Ad. Tech.
Organized. Crime.
October 2019
Augustine Fou, PhD.
acfou [at] mktsci.com

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Who am I?
• I am a digital marketer of 23+ years
• I study digital ad fraud
• I help clients audit campaigns for
fraud that gets by verification tech
• I show clients the data, teach them
how to find/reduce fraud themselves

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Counterfeit goods
Fakes or unauthorized replicas of the real product
ad impressions shown to
bots/software not to humans
ad fraud

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Computer crimes
Hacking, malware, ransomware, drive-by cryptomining
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2018/02/state-malicious-cryptomining/https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/trojanized-apps-
containing-ad-fraud-malware-downloaded-102m-times/

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Securities fraud
Deceptive practice of inducing investors with false information
• Revenues derived from
illegal activities
• Inflating revenue,
profits through ad fraud
• Overstating subscribers,
active users, ARPU
• Selling counterfeit
services and products
• Misrepresenting the
capabilities of services,
products
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/tech/match-group-sued/index.html

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Illegal Interception
Keystroke logging to harvest logins, passwords, personal info
Source: Freedom to Tinker, Nov 2017
https://www.thedailybeast.com/california-passes-landmark-
privacy-bill-to-restrict-data-harvesting

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Data interference
Alteration or suppression of computer data
Buzzfeed, March 2018
Source:
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/19/business/la-
fi-mo-cookie-stuffing-ebay-20130419
“Laguna Niguel man pleads
guilty in 'cookie stuffing' scam
against Ebay. The online
auctioneer paid Dunning’s
company about $5.2 million in
2006 and 2007, the U.S. Attorney
said.”

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Forgery, falsified profiles
Unverifiable lookalike audiences contain fake profiles/preferences
Bots pretend to be
oncologists by visiting
oncology related sites.
“[LOTAME] purged 400 million
of its over 4 billion profiles after
identifying them as bots.”
Adweek, Feb 2018

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Criminal impersonation
Fake accounts pretending to be politicians, celebrities

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Piracy/Mass Infringement
Large numbers of cloned sites containing 100% pirated content
Mass infringement
sites use pirated
content to attract
human visitors
- Show ads
- Attempt to hack
them or track them

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Illegal Access / Breaches
Harvesting personal info, ecommerce transactions, other data
BreachesIllegal Access
https://www.csoonline.com/article/2130
877/data-breach/the-biggest-data-
breaches-of-the-21st-century.html

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Aggravated identity theft
Stolen personal info can be sold, and also later used in hacking
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/heres-how-much-
your-personal-information-is-selling-for-on-the-dark-web/
Data Prices on the Dark Web
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/09/tech/fac
ebook-ukraine-hackers/index.html

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Wire fraud
Knowingly misrepresenting the capabilities of the … technology
“Allegedly engaged in a multi-million dollar
scheme to defraud investors, as well as a
doctors and patients. charged with two counts
of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine
counts of wire fraud.
Holmes and Balwani were accused of knowingly
misrepresenting the capabilities of Theranos'
proprietary blood testing technology. The two
allegedly knew there were "accuracy and
reliability problems," and that it "could not
compete with existing, more conventional
machines," the US Attorney's office said.”
http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/15/technology/elizabeth-
holmes-indicted-theranos/index.html
https://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou/why-fraud-
detection-doesnt-work
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/brand-safety-
detection-tech-over-representing-what/

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Money laundering
Dollars are laundered as digital media ad spend on “cash out” sites
1. Buy and place digital ads on sites and apps
controlled by the same entity
2. Collect dollars from “cash out” sites, fully
laundered

15. October 2019 / Page 14marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Online child abuse images
“Using a variety of sophisticated techniques to avoid detection,
offenders are exploiting online advertising networks to
monetise their distribution of child sexual abuse material.”
Source: The Drum Nov 6, 2018 Source: CNN, Feb 2019 Source: NYT, Sep 2019

16. October 2019 / Page 15marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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About the Author
Augustine Fou, PhD.
acfou [@] mktsci.com

17. October 2019 / Page 16marketing.scienceconsulting group, inc.
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Dr. Augustine Fou – Researcher
2013
2014
Published slide decks and posts:
http://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou/presentations
https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/augustinefou
2016
2015
2017
20192018