The Publisher of Newsweek and the International Business Times Has Been Buying Traffic and Engaging in Ad Fraud

Speaking of good reporting from BuzzFeed, here’s a report from Craig Silverman on publications that are pretty much doing the opposite:

The publisher of Newsweek and the International Business Times has been engaging in fraudulent online traffic practices that helped it secure a major ad buy from a US government agency, according to a new report released today by independent ad fraud researchers.

IBTimes.com, the publisher’s US business site, last year won a significant portion of a large video and display advertising campaign for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency. Social Puncher, a consulting firm that investigates online ad fraud, alleges in its report that the ads were displayed to an audience on IBTimes.com that includes a significant amount of “cheap junk traffic with a share of bots.”

★ Thursday, 1 February 2018