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The media BuzzFeed News investigated a vast network of Android apps organized for advertising fraud. In total, 125 apps and sites managed by the company We Purchase Apps may have diverted hundreds of millions of dollars to Google advertisers and other boards.
State of play of this international network of advertising fraud
The operation is quite simple when you are an application developer. The company contacts you by explaining to you that it would be interested to buy back your product. After several exchanges and conferences on Skype with several people, the proposed redemption price is often higher than what is really worth the application. Finally, the final sum is set in Bitcoin to make the payment anonymous. Steven Schoen, developer of the Emoji Switcher app, acquired by We Purchase Apps, detailed this process BuzzFeed News.
The company's website indicated offices in New York (in a house), and a telephone number located in England. Once acquired, the application pages on the Google Play Store changed for owners based in Cyprus, Russia, or Bulgaria. To add vagueness and blur the tracks, we learn in the report that the fraudulent money circulated between Israel, Serbia, Germany, Bulgaria, Malta, or the British Virgin Islands.
To scam Google advertisers, applications were installed a tool for tracking all the facts and actions of users. Once enough data was collected, the behaviors of the real users were copied by robots. This has led to the creation of fake users generating fake application traffic and thus generating advertising revenue. The behavior of the bots has been made so sophisticated that Google has not noticed anything. Imagine this badociated with a click farm. The results could be impressive.
This operation has been confirmed by Protected Media, a cybersecurity company contacted by BuzzFeed News. For their part, Pixalate, a company specialized in advertising fraud has confirmed these facts, but nuance the amount of fraud to 75 million dollars. However, an anonymous person who said he was close to the enforcement network badured that this amount was at least ten times higher. The same person said their network was working with very large partners on mobile advertising, not just Google.
In total, these applications would have been installed 115 million times. While many are games, some are designed to make selfies, to make sure you eat healthy, or to make a flashlight. One of the network applications, EverythingMe, has been installed more than 20 million times. In addition, many of these services were targeted primarily at children, as well as teens.
Another service, AppsFlyer estimated the advertising fraud carried out by the network at a sum between 700 and 800 million dollars for the first quarter of 2018. The service adds that the network would have achieved a growth of + 30% compared to the previous year. For Pixalate, 23% of the impressions recorded by the advertisements in the applications of the network would be fraudulent.
But what does Google do?
The Mountain View firm specified BuzzFeed News that it had already deleted more than 700 000 applications that violated its terms of use. The giant is also pushing the fight against fraud via the famous ads.txt on the websites. Logically, Google defends itself by ensuring that all network partners can not detect fraud or have supported it.
To clarify this, the firm conducted its own investigation. She realized that dozens of applications used her advertising networks. She confirmed the presence of robots and removed more than 30 apps from the Google Play Store. Many advertising accounts have also been closed. The giant also added that it had already identified some of the applications of the fraud network before having the information from BuzzFeed News. Afterwards, Google published an article on his blog to bring more details.
In the end, only $ 10 million was charged to advertisers using the Google Network. For other advertising services, the cost should be higher if accounts are requested by their customers.
To conclude, BuzzFeed News provides several information about the management of the grouping of applications. Two Israelis, Omer Anatot and Michael Arie Iron, and two Germans, Thomas Porzelt and Felix Reinel are mentioned. Omer Anatot has been contacted via WhatsApp, he is the manager of EverythingMe. He condemns this fraud, and designates AdNet Express as guilty. He would have left the company to increase the number of installations of his application.
" They bought facilities for us for a short time. Very quickly, it turned out that these users were 100% of the fraudulent traffic of robots He said.
The long investigation of BuzzFeed News tries to unravel a complex puzzle of companies, services, false contacts. All of this could be reminiscent of a money laundering or narcotics network, but it's all about Android apps and ads. A new eldorado still too naive for the benefit of mobsters? Advertising fraud still has a bright future ahead of it.
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