Study: Online Publishers ‘Virtually Free’ of Ad Fraud

Wall Street Journal: The online publishing trade group Digital Content Next commissioned an ad fraud detection firm to study 32 of its members’ websites. Participants included Conde Nast, ESPN, Vox Media, CBS Interactive, NBCUniversal and the New York Times. The goal was to compare fraudulent traffic to its members’ sites with that present in the wider online ad ecosystem. According to the study, “sophisticated bots” accounted for an average of 2.8 percent of traffic to display ads across its members’ properties. In other words, traffic to the member sites is relatively “fraud-free.”