Ad Fraud Research with Augustine Fou

A huge percentage of online advertisements are never seen by humans. They are viewed by bots–automated scripts that are opening web pages in a browser and pretending to be a human. Advertising scammers set up web pages, embed advertisements on those pages, and then pay for bot traffic to come and view those advertisements.

This aspect of the internet is bizarre and alarming. Think about it–how much of the Internet economy depends on online advertising? A lot! How many of those advertisements are consumed by robots? Some estimates say as much as 80%.

The more time I spend looking at the online advertising industry, the more perplexed and curious I become. Augustine Fou also has this curiosity. He got a PhD at MIT in material science and engineering–but today he spends his time researching advertising fraud and working as an independent consultant.

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