Are Crisis Periods an ‘Opportunity’ for Ad Fraud? That’s what the bad guys on the net seem to think. The activity of click farms, the so-called click farms that generate illegitimate clicks on content and online ads, has not suffered in recent months, as has happened with so many issues in the legitimate economy. Más bien todo lo contrario. En los últimos meses su trabajo ha aumentado y también se ha convertido en más humano. Las granjas de clics se han integrado en la llamada gig economy y están empezando a fichar a más personas que a modo de freelance – y buscando ingresos en un año complejo – están haciendo lo que antes hacían los robots. Con ello, el comportamiento parece más orgánico y a los diferentes players de la industria les resulta menos sospechoso. That’s the general conclusion that can be drawn from the latest ClickCease study on ad fraud, published Panama Mobile Database by Campaign . According to the study data, irregular businesses that facilitate online advertising fraud, both false clicks and irregular traffic increases or the so-called CAPTCHA hacking, have experienced growth in the last six months. Not only have they managed to position themselves well in the market, but they are also attracting more and more potential workers. 
When it comes to your position in the market, reaching these companies is very easy. As they point out in the study’s conclusions, you don’t have to go into the dark web to find companies that offer these services. Those responsible for the study searched online for ‘buy bot traffic for website’ or ‘buy clicks for website’ and found multiple results in the main search engines. Not only that, they also came across ads linked to Brother Cell Phone List
those search terms. A quick check accessing a search engine in Spanish and using equivalent terms in Spanish shows something very similar. If you search for ‘buy web traffic’ in Google from Spain, as we have done to check what happens beyond English that those responsible for the study handle, multiple results also appear. Some are legitimate, from affiliate services and SEO recommendations. Others simply sell traffic in an irregular way.
On the other hand, and going back to the data from the ClickCease study, to do advertising fraud it is increasingly easy to have human workers. Those responsible for the fraud have used different tools, such as using bots to create clicks or fill third-party devices with malware to generate that traffic. However, the crisis has opened the door to signing real human workers. They have entered the gig economy. It is not complicated that way, they point out in the study, to find job offers in which freelancers are asked to download apps, click on ads, complete CAPTCHAs and similar practices. The promises are that with a few clicks and a few actions you can make about $ 100 a month, which in tough financial times can be a powerful incentive. Especially, the researchers add, when trying to recruit workers from lower-income economies such as India or Vietnam. Recruiting people to do what bots do is easier in that context.
Those responsible for the study already point out that this recruitment of people is on the rise and the coronavirus crisis has only underpinned this growth trend. It is a job that can be done without leaving home and it is one that comes at a time when there are no other things. Some of those companies that offer fraudulent clicks already claim that they pay workers millions for those clicks. According to ClickCease data, for example, Paidvert ScartletClicks claims to have already spent $ 13.2 million paying freelancers for their online activity. It’s 5 cents a click. Why are these companies paying workers to do what a bot could do? The key is in how the systems on the other side perceive those clicks. Those made by freelancers are safe clicks that create the illusion that a real Internet user is on the other side. They are clicks that are sold as organic and that include elements such as spending a certain time on the destination web or clicking throughout the day to generate a more credible illusion of reality.
