{"id":163235,"date":"2012-08-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/msr-research-item\/measuring-and-fingerprinting-click-spam-in-ad-networks\/"},"modified":"2018-10-16T21:47:39","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T04:47:39","slug":"measuring-and-fingerprinting-click-spam-in-ad-networks","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/measuring-and-fingerprinting-click-spam-in-ad-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"Measuring and Fingerprinting Click-Spam in Ad Networks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"asset-content\">\n<p>Advertising plays a vital role in supporting free websites and smartphone apps. Click-spam, i.e., fraudulent or invalid clicks on online ads where the user has no actual interest in the advertiser\u2019s site, results in advertising revenue being misappropriated by click-spammers. While ad networks take active measures to block click-spam today, the effectiveness of these measures is largely unknown. Moreover, advertisers and third parties have no way of independently estimating or defending against click-spam.<\/p>\n<p>In this paper, we take the first systematic look at click-spam. We propose the first methodology for advertisers to independently measure click-spam rates on their ads. We also develop an automated methodology for ad networks to proactively detect different simultaneous click-spam attacks. We validate both methodologies using data from major ad networks. We then conduct a large-scale measurement study of click-spam across ten major ad networks and four types of ads. In the process, we identify and perform in-depth analysis on seven ongoing click-spam attacks not blocked by major ad networks at the time of this writing. Our findings highlight the severity of the click-spam problem, especially for mobile ads.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .asset-content --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advertising plays a vital role in supporting free websites and smartphone apps. Click-spam, i.e., fraudulent or invalid clicks on online ads where the user has no actual interest in the advertiser\u2019s site, results in advertising revenue being misappropriated by click-spammers. While ad networks take active measures to block click-spam today, the effectiveness of these measures [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13558,13547],"msr-publication-type":[193716],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-163235","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-security-privacy-cryptography","msr-research-area-systems-and-networking","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on Data Communication 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