Right, wrong or otherwise, online technology innovations were – and are – sometimes driven by pornography, (See PORN: The Hidden Engine That Drives Innovation In Tech), gambling (See VR is a smart bet for the future of gambling), and crime in general.
Leaving aside moral judgements on those industries, they’re generally considered on the seedier side of business in general even if they’ve become more mainstream. I recall early in the digital business, (around mid 1990s), there were some companies that just didn’t want business from such industries more due to a higher incidence of fraud and such more so than any other reasons. Over time, of course, ad fraud has become more prevalent everywhere. It seems everyday there’s something about ad fraud in at least on of my industry news feeds. I’m starting to wonder what – if any – spinoff benefits there might be from AdWars. Pick a study, any study, and you’ll find ad fraud to be in the billions of dollars. Here’s just a small sample…
- SlideShare – State of digital ad fraud 2017 by Augustine Fou
- Businesses could lose $16.4 billion to online advertising fraud in 2017: Report
- The Bot Baseline: Fraud in Digital Advertising 2017 Report
- Adweek’s Ad Fraud Section
- ‘Biggest Ad Fraud Ever’: Hackers Make $5M A Day By Faking 300M Video Views