Thousands of Apps Secretly Run Ads That Users Can't See

The actual study is http://forensiq.com/download/Forensiq-MobileDeviceHijacking-...

Highlights:

* For each suspect app, they took a factory-reset device or emulator, installed it, then observed packet captures

* They estimated advertisers lose 13% of ad spend to fraud

* They captured a script that simulated random clicks on advertisers' landing pages

* They observed evidence of malicious apps spoofing the IDs of legitimate apps that don't show adds

* Malicious apps would "establish on average 1100 connections per minute and communicate with 320 ad networks, ad servers, exchanges and data providers in the course of an hour"

I mean, I'm sure this is happening, but are they sure this isn't just sloppy prefetching? I've seen a lot of ad sdk's do this poorly, for example if you drop in five ad sdks with a sloppy mediation layer on it, all of them could just prefetch a bunch of ads when you first launch the app. Are they sure these apps are actually reporting forged impressions?

Developers protecting the user experience, while finding some way to make revenue.

I'm not saying it's right. But revenue is a puzzle. People hate ads in apps.

Ad partners are going to notice a horrible CTR. This is a kind of fraud that doesn't last long.

Android and iOS have /etc/hosts, which you can edit if you jailbreak. I dont know about Windows phone, they run something from Nokia.

Some but not all Android devices permit you to install firmware you build yourself. Drivers for undocumented chips can be a problem

You can block IPs at your firewall. I havent actually tried it but I understand you can install a VPS client so you could use a firewall even when you're at a wifi spot.