Advertisers are outraged that 23% of video ads are viewed by robots
Pity those poor advertisers, who are outraged, to say the least. A recent study has shown that computers being remotely operated by hackers account for almost one in four views of digital video ads worldwide. The fraud leads advertisers to spend approximately $6.3 billion dollars per year for advertising that doesn't have any impact whatsoever. The fake views, which also account for 11 percent of other display ads, often take place in the middle of the night when the owners of the hijacked computers are asleep.
The advertising unions are understandably upset.
The advertising unions are understandably upset.
"We're being robbed," said Bob Liodice, president and chief executive officer of the New York-based association, which has 640 members that spend more than $250 billion a year in advertising. "This isn't about system inefficiencies or process sloppiness. This is about criminal activity."But others would say, that's the way the game is played. No word on who wrote the software that manages these fake video views, or who benefits. Finally, pity the poor robots, people, forced to watch video ads all day and night: what a dreary existence!
The visibility of it is kind of impossible to enforce, as far as I know. At the end of the day you are sending software to run on a random, foreign environment, its not going to be easy to make sure it does what you want it to, especially in a sand-boxed environment.
I imagine its a back and forth cat and mouse between those trying to simulate views and those paying the advertising bills.
I guess if the question is if a human is present, you'd need a captcha. But Who the hell want's to fill out a captcha in order to view an advertisement?
So you have people you want to view your ad actively trying to avoid it, while those you don't want to see the ad ( robots ) want to see the ad. That's a tough nut to crack.