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Subject: Re: UKNM: ho ho ... oh.
From: Paul Cook
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 18:03:58 +0100

We looked into overcoming this problem when we were developing one of our
products and it was not a simple as it seems.

If someone is determined enough they can get by most systems. It is quite
easy to fake all request information and the only method we came up with
that wouldn't break a few rules was to automatically check the requesting
IP number. This would need to be done by the server and not the page
(someone browsing off line would find their modem dialing up again) which
adds to the problem.

Basically click throughs are a meaningless measurement for ad performance,
they also tell you nothing about how long someone stays at the site or
anything else that is of value. The Millward Brown study showed they have
no relevance to recall.

What we need is something else.... then again I would say that!

Paul

PS About 8 months ago 2 ex employees of a big publisher who produce a
travel site came back from the pub and thought it would be amusing to do
the exact same thing for Thompson Holidays. When Yell twigged what was
going on they found that the script was running on this (not so hard to
guess) publisher's site!

PPS The ad servers don't attempt to deal with this and neither, to my
knowledge, do the auditors.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Cook The Makers of:
Managing Director Plannet for Buyers - Knowlege is Power
Red Eye International NetOutcome - What's a click through worth?

http://www.redeye.com AdReporter - Full Reports, half the price


At 02:42 PM 09/04/98 +0100, Richard Houston wrote:
>Ben,
>We know that this type of spoofing is not new and that it can be avoided.
>However, the point is that even a comparatively respectable property such
>as Yell *wasn't* guarding against it and was properly duped.
>
>>For those who have not read the article the gist is that you can write a
>>program to simulate ad impressions or click throughs. If this is new to
>>anyone I would be surprised although personally I would never have tried
>to >demonstrate it. > >Actually this is not new. I have had discussions
>about this problem for the >past three years (if not longer). One thing

>worth noting is that this is not >a problem with Porn sites where each IP
>address is counted only once a day. > >True its a problem if you are not
>aware of it but there are simple methods >of avoiding it. > >yours, > >Ben
>>-----Original Message----- >From: Richard Houston <richardatwebmedia [dot] com>
>>To: uk-netmarketingatchinwag [dot] com <uk-netmarketingatchinwag [dot] com> >Date: 08
>April 1998 17:23 >Subject: UKNM: ho ho ... oh. > > >>Good stuff: >> >>
>>>http://www.internet-magazine.com/news/apr98/08a.htm
>Richard Houston
>------------------------------------------------------------> Webmedia
>Group, 21 Noel St, London, UK, W1V 3RD Land: 0171 494 3177, Fax: 0171 434
>1304, Mob: 0961 11 60 59
>



Replies
  Re: UKNM: ho ho ... oh., Richard Houston

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