When you browse the internet, the adverts you see are often delivered from dedicated advert servers. The idea is that you get a constant rotation of the messages on these virtual billboards, and the adverts can be tailored to reflect an individual’s supposed interests. We are still at the early days of sophistication when it comes to profiling users. As a result, the rules used will be relatively simple right now, but will get more complicated over time. We all know that the risk of mistakes goes up as rules get more complicated. Yet mistakes happen already. Just now, one very mainstream English-language site served me an advert written in Swedish that pointed to a Swedish website. Of course, this advert is going to be ineffectual. It is the wrong advert for me, and presenting it to me is a wasted opportunity (although I admit that, in this case, I still clicked through!) In turn, the Swedes paying for the ad may not be getting good value for money if delivery is too random. This spells out a need for adserve assurance – the assurance that internet adverts are delivered to the correct and intended audience. To me, that sounds like a potential new growth area for revenue assurance.
The Commsrisk Global Fraud Dashboard
Our Global Fraud Dashboard uses AI-powered search to collate, update and visualize data about scams and other network abuses from around the world. New charts are added each month. See it here.
