Submitted via IRC for chromas
Click farms and buying traffic trickle into podcasts - Digiday
In digital, where there is money, there is often fraud.
Last week, Maximum Media, the parent company of Joe.ie, came under fire in Ireland for allegedly using click farms in 2017 to juice the number of listens on an episode of the publisher's since-discontinued business podcast, The Capital B, sponsored by Allied Irish Banks. The bank's agency, Core, part of Starcom, halted running campaigns with Maximum Media in Ireland.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau is discussing the case and releasing a statement this week. Maximum Media said an internal investigation found this was an isolated incident unauthorized by the company. Last year, click farms in audio were used to game the ranking of podcasts in Apple's iTunes charts through accounts leaving reviews. In the case of Maximum Media, it's been alleged that listens to the podcast episode on SoundCloud leapt from 3,000 to 21,000 overnight.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday December 04 2019, @12:21PM (1 child)
"What!? You mean that account isn't real! A shill account throwing off my advertising ratings!
Well I never! Something must clearly be done about this fakery on the internet!!!!!"
-advertising executive also in charge of entire division of shill product reviewers
Is there somewhere a gif of an advertising executive choking on their own vomit? It might get high ratings.
Well, thanks for the tip on what bothers the people ruining the world! (hint hint)
check some relevant memes I whipped up and share them:
https://archive.is/xXs6r [archive.is]
https://archive.is/TjIwI [archive.is]
https://archive.is/YkJr8 [archive.is]
https://archive.ph/T95pm [archive.ph]
https://archive.is/zyyUA [archive.is]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04 2019, @07:37PM
My dad and uncle own a small mom and pop business and we've had some weird 'customer' give us like five 5 star reviews on Google reviews. I'm not sure this guy ever even purchased anything from us, he would come in and talk about purchasing stuff but never actually bought anything. His reviews are so incoherent that even though he's nice and all it's almost embarrassing to have his reviews on Google reviews. Oh well, we are still nice to him when he comes in, I'm sure he has a mental issue or something because nothing he says ever makes any sense.