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Click fraud is a sophisticated online crime where publishers use bots and trickery to generate fake clicks on the advertisements placed on their websites. For each of these fake clicks, the advertisers pay fees to the advertising networks, and the money is then shared with the nefarious website owners.

According to Trey Vanes, Polygraph’s head of marketing, click fraud is now so common that it has become a normal part of the online advertising ecosystem.

"No advertiser is immune to click fraud," said Vanes. "Part of the problem is most advertising networks are not doing enough to prevent click fraud from occurring. A major advertising network is doing no click fraud detection at all, meaning the millions of advertisers using their service are completely exposed."

Vanes says the type of people doing click fraud is no longer confined to organized crime gangs and technically-savvy fraudsters.

"We’re seeing more and more ’legitimate’ companies doing click fraud. For example, we’re currently tracking two Nasdaq listed publishers who are stealing millions of dollars from advertisers every day," said Vanes. "We know of multiple executives who are involved in this crime. Just recently we discovered the CTO of a major advertising company is generating thousands of fake clicks on the ads on his websites every day."

Vanes says it is not believable most advertising networks do not know how to detect click fraud.

"Click fraud would go away if most advertising networks made a bigger effort to detect click fraud," said Vanes. "It’s simply not believable that a small click fraud detection company like Polygraph is magnitudes better at detecting fake clicks compared to most advertising networks."

"Why aren’t most advertising networks shutting down the accounts of click fraudsters?", added Vanes.

Vanes encourages advertisers to protect themselves by using a click fraud prevention service like Polygraph.

"Polygraph gives advertisers everything they need to protect their ads against click fraud," said Vanes. "We use cutting-edge technology to detect click fraud. We tell you which scam websites are clicking on your ads, so you can block these websites from displaying or clicking on your ads in the future. We tell you which of your ad keywords are being targeted, so you can adjust your ad campaigns to avoid click fraud bots. We give you details of every fake click, so you can quantify your marketing loss, and apply for refunds from the advertising networks."

"Using Polygraph is easy, and we’re committed to helping advertisers protect their ad budgets from criminals and their enablers," added Vanes.