An inorganic user engine driving ad campaigns on major websites and podcasts | Hacker News Reader

An inorganic user engine driving ad campaigns on major websites and podcasts

deepsee.io

79 pointsmooreds30 comments

oh wow, thanks for submitting our research! So, we've essentially found that free mobile games engage in a form of traffic arbitrage by making users load entire websites that are ad monetized in order to earn in-game currency. This is considered invalid traffic (IVT) in the digital advertising industry.

The bit that HN may find interesting is that when entire web pages are embedded in a webview like that, the verification javascript embedded in the ads that are present on the page cannot (sometimes at all) realize that they are within a webview. Making this traffic seem totally organic.

What's worse, recently we found that a major podcast network was autoplaying podcasts in order to juice their numbers for all their shows using this rewarded traffic scheme, and again, nearly impossible to verify on the other end.

There's a lot of interesting technology challenges to solve in the ad-tech space because let's be honest, it's pretty rough and privacy hostile.

>the verification javascript embedded in the ads that are present on the page cannot (sometimes at all) realize that they are within a webview

Good! Webviews are browsers. Browsers are webviews. There’s no way to tell the difference, because there is no difference!

But there is a significant difference. Browser is an impenetrable sandbox, while Webview can be accessed and modified by the app in many ways.

Lmao, no.

When you put a webview in an app, the app is the browser. Period. A browser is by definition an app that displays webviews. And yes, a browser can access and modify the webpages it is displaying, no shit. That’s literallt the job of the browser, aka the user agent.

Yeah, that's the problem.

The problem?

So you're saying that laypeople shouldn't be allowed to create new browsers that interact with the Web in whatever way they want to? Why exactly?

I think that Apple should insist that webviews used this way identify themselves via JS as monetization containers, with clear definitions for when and why subject to App Store review. Done.

I get that idealists will be up in arms about user-agent based self-censorship and still feel this way. It’s reversible immediately if it was proven to be harmful.

IDK it seems like a problem between the ad networks and the developers. What motivation does Apple have to fix it? It seems like it benefits both of their customers -- the third party developers and the end consumers.

Isn't Apple engaging in a war against the ad networks? They should do all they can to facilitate this -- add a special type of embedded browser window to their OS that has garbage cookies/fingerprinting info and is rendered off-screen.

Apple should insist that these webviews be as indistinguishable from organic traffic as possible, in order to extinguish parasitical ad networks.

> recently we found that a major podcast network was autoplaying podcasts in order to juice their numbers

This is a tactic that some video game streamers use as well. One big example of this is the fextralife wiki site[0]. I get very frustrated when it is the top result from a web search or if it is the only place to get relevant information.

[0] - https://monsterhunterworld.wiki.fextralife.com/Monster+Hunte...

I must be missing something; hasn't this been happening for years? Viewing an ad in exchange for a continue?

How is that different from ad videos that must be seen to access otherwise "free" resources, such as free WiFi in Airports? Or even from video ads that auto play on YouTube? None of them captured my genuine interest ; but I accepted the deal of my brain time (or my closed eyes) in exchange for some retribution.

Right, how is this different from free game apps showing you ads for other games?

Typically these days you have to watch about 15s of the ad. Seems involuntary but the ads take this into account, "can I get you to play this fake simulation of the game inside the ad, or are you just going to click close?"

The difference is that the content being shown is not an "Ad" in way whatsoever. If a website with 5-6 ads is loaded within a webview, those are 6 impressions that will be billed as if the user went that site directly. It's arbitrage. Similarly, for podcasts, having the actual player autoplay to count the plays as real, actual plays. Which is different from a podcast ad where you hear some sample content.

Aribitrage is when you can buy and sell the same commodity in a loop, generating continuous profit.

This just looks like ad fraud at best.

> 6 impressions that will be billed as if the user went that site directly

Who the hell goes anywhere directly; and who believes it?

Videos that must be watched for Wi-Fi in airports can be properly attributed to boingboing/ unitedwifi.com/ etc…

Advertisers see these as organic mobile web page visits, when really they are incentivized /rewarded inapp impressions. There are different sets of expectations in such an environment. For one, impressions should probably be priced lower since the user has no engagement with the content. A lot of advertisers use contextual signals from the page text when deciding who to show ads to, and this disrupts the assumption that a user sought out the page they are on for some reason

> For one, impressions should probably be priced lower since the user has no engagement with the content.

And because displaying a web page in a temporary in-app browser will likely prevent the user from viewing or interacting with the ads as intended. (For example, if a user taps on one of the ads, where does that open?)

Yo dawg, I heard you like ads, so we put ads in your ads...

This is great. Adtech eating itself from the inside out. Just when you thought they couldn't get any sleazier, advertisers always find a way.

I can't even decide who's right in this case. Suddenly they care about "inorganic" traffic? Please... There's a whole segment of the web dedicated to SEO hacking, click baiting, stolen or AI generated content whose only purpose is to scam the system and drive fake ad impressions.

Have we forgotten about popups? This is a story as old as the web.

This article is a fantastic window into the ad publishers world. One aspect that struck me in particular is how the writer insists watching an ad for an in-game reward is bad, actually, because "the viewer has no attachment to the product". I fail to see how that would differ from any other ad. People don't tend to want to see ads, and this is the one area where they actually chose to do so.

No, the views aren't people looking at the ad, they're gamers using it as an alternative to paying to play. As the blog says, there is no attachment between the views and the ad buy. But it is being sold as if they were legitimate impressions.

May as well say "people don't tend to want to spend money, but this pyramid scheme is one way that they choose to do so."

What makes that different than ads on YouTube, where I watch the ad to see a video?

it’s definitely poor phrasing, but my gut says that the sentiment is correct. if you’re playing a game and you want to get back to it as quickly as possible, you’re gonna have even more resentment than usual for whatever pointless product is being shoved in your face

Totally! It's worthless from a brand association standpoint. Even a company like google states that the key factor in counting an ad impression (or anything else for that matter) is intent. It's all about intent. Not to say that you WANT to see ads when you visit a website, nobody does, but it's at least the expected exchange.

Is there any such thing as a voluntary ad impression?

No, not really. As much as the industry tries to tell itself that a well targeted ad delights the user, that just isn't the case. I think a little honesty would go a long way in the digital advertising world. (I use little to mean a lot)

there are times when people will voluntarily look at adverts, but they tend to be in situations where you’re expecting them and they’re appropriate to the context. usually this isn’t online: film trailers at the cinema, properties in the window of an estate agent, classifieds at the back of a newspaper

The only time people want to engage with ads, is the classifieds (and even the classifieds have ads ffs).

Where else do people want to see an advertisement and it’s not just an interruption of sorts. TV ads, Popup ads, taking up the entire screen, etc. it’s the same thing.

film trailers (at the cinema), properties in the window of an estate agent, online marketplace listings, there are even times that people will go out of their way to watch TV adverts, like at halftime in the superbowl, or if there’s a particularly funny or artfully made* edition. these are exceptions and not the rule, of course, but there are times when people want products marketed to them.

the problem is that 99% of adverts are as you say interruptions, pestering you to buy something you don’t need

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9ogzVyTtcw

Hum... A lot of times people play mobile games just because they are bored. Those are not eager to get back to the game, and may find an ad for something interesting even more fulfilling than the game.

Ads are weird. And if you look at it, most of the problems on discussion here would go away if the ad networks simply collected feedback from the buyers.

Hey there, writer here:

I can understand how it comes off that I consider rewarded ad formats bad, but that's actually not the case. I have the view that advertisers should know when their ad shows in that context. Those ad formats work for a lot of different kinds of advertisers, particularly mobile game developers.

What's most troubling here is that NONE of the advertisers knew this is how their ads were loading.

There are standards on how to disclose this kind of ad placement in an auction, but they weren't followed at all. Advertisers thought they were showing their ads to organic visitors of a website with high contextual relevance to their product / company values.

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