Tech talk: Mobile advertising fraud

The shortage of manpower in hi-tech and the difficulty in recruiting employees is a problem that requires a creative solution.

By ARIEL SHAPIRA
Updated: JULY 23, 2017 09:07
PR image – Appsflyer employees (photo credit: Courtesy)
PR image – Appsflyer employees
(photo credit: Courtesy)
AppsFlyer, an Israeli mobile ad analytics company that is the largest mobile app database in the world, reports significant achievements in the fight against mobile advertising fraud using innovative tools developed to save its customers tens of millions of dollars this year. The company’s groundbreaking technology is based on the fact that the company has managed to map 98% of the world’s mobile devices, and with advanced machine learning and new data tools, it is capable of analyzing astronomical amounts of information (the company measures about 500 billion mobile operations every month).
This enormous anti-fraud database powers advanced algorithms at unparalleled scale. Furthermore, machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities monitor hundreds of billions of interactions each month, detecting new sources and types of fraud with unparalleled speed and efficiency.
The incredible growth in the app market in recent years has led to a dramatic increase in the volume of mobile advertising – over $100 billion in 2016 alone. Following the big money, unlawful activity has also flourished and many people are trying to develop ways to rake in billions from this activity.
AppsFlyer knows how to deal with many sources of fraud, such as computer labs that employ workers whose sole purpose is to install and emulate applications, bots (automated devices that mimic human behavior), and rogue applications installed on the phone itself.
AppsFlyer is launching Active Fraud Insights 2.0, which will set the standard for combating advertising fraud by thoroughly examining each of the 2,500 ad networks the company works with. Media sources that do not meet the standards of clean, fraud-free traffic will be removed from the platform.
The new AppsFlyer tool is based on a combination of realtime fraud blocking and locator detection after an app has been downloaded and taking aggregated trends into consideration. While real-time blocking technology is important, detection capability is in fact the most significant breakthrough against mobile advertising fraud and is built on large data and machine learning capabilities.
Active Fraud Insights 2.0 detects a wide range of advanced frauds such as install hijacking, click flooding, install fraud, and app engagement fraud.
“For nearly two years,” says Oren Kaniel, founder and CEO of AppsFlyer, “the level of sophistication and fraud in the mobile advertising industry has grown at alarming rates. Thanks to the company’s efforts, however, we are now able to identify, neutralize and prevent such scams more quickly than any other company in the global industry, and we have become a type of regulator in this field. We are doing everything we can to significantly reduce the scope of the phenomenon to protect our customers: advertisers.”
AppsFlyer is located in Herzliya Pituah and employs 270 people in Israel and abroad (with offices in New York, London, San Francisco, Beijing, Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul, Bangalore, Berlin and Buenos Aires). The company is now considered the world’s largest company in the mobile ad analytics field, which measures mobile marketing and advertising campaigns. The company enables advertisers to know where the users are most profitable for their application – whether from Google search, Facebook or Twitter ads, direct email, SMS, etc. This valuable information enables application owners to maximize their marketing investments and increases their profitability.
Among its customers are Waze, Playtika, Alibaba, HBO, Activision, and Kayak. AppsFlyer also partners with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snap, and Tencent.
Only in hi-tech: A job interview with electronic music and beer
The shortage of manpower in hi-tech and the difficulty in recruiting employees is a problem that requires a creative solution. A new employee recruitment initiative is inviting hi-tech professionals to an evening of free food and alcohol, with a DJ playing electronic music. This gives them a chance to mingle with other techies and develop social relationships.
Over 600 hi-tech professionals are invited to the upcoming event on July 20, which will costs tens of thousands of shekels. In addition, the only way to get an invitation to the party is by being invited by a friend, which everyone knows is the best way to recruit in hi-tech, too. Companies often grant benefits, such as trips abroad, to employees who help recruit their colleagues. By holding these parties, personnel managers can have access hundreds of hi-tech people in the crowd and catch them in a light social atmosphere. Sometimes they even manage to recruit workers in groups.
The event was initiated and hosted by Nest, a joint workspace complex in south Tel Aviv, as part of the services offered to start-ups they host in the complex. In addition to getting to know the guests and start-ups involved with Nest, the complex also sees a high amount of traffic through its rooms.
“The social atmosphere at work that helps people connect and shared entertainment outings are much more important for attracting new employees than offering subsidized lunches,” says Amit Shumovitz, CEO of NEST.
“Hi-techies would prefer to take a new job at a place that has a nice social atmosphere that will make them happy, so we planned a series of parties that will strengthen social connections among workers.”
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Translated by Hannah Hochner.