LoopMe unaffected by 'methbots'
An audit revealed that just 0.00064% of impressions were affected at LoopMe
What happened?
In late December 2016, a sophisticated Russian hacking operation dubbed ‘Methbot’ was detected by ad fraud detection company White Ops. Cofounder and CEO, Michael Tiffany commented that ‘we’ve never seen anything like this. Methbot elevates ad fraud to a whole new level of sophistication and scale’. The figures being discussed reflect this, with White Ops predicting that it could cost publishers up to $5 million per day.
While this figure has been contested by the likes of AppNexus – their investigations found that they hosted under $500 in transactions on the fraudulent IP addresses – it has caused a huge stir in the industry and rightly so.
You can read more about how ‘Methbot’ operated on Business Insider and AdExchanger.
What are we doing?
An audit showed that just 0.00064% of impressions were served to compromised IPs in November.
We immediately took steps to blacklist the compromised ‘methbot’ IP’s into LoopMe’s system-wide pre-bid fraud filters and are blocking ads to all these IPs. We will not charge any client for impressions served to these IP’s.
At LoopMe, we are committed to fraud free advertising. We have pre-bid brand quality filters as well as manual ad spot quality vetting with banned categories for adult content, illegal activity and violence (among others). We also utilise URL and video keyword blocks to prevent your ads appearing against inappropriate content.
We work with all major third party fraud and viewability vendors, including Integral Ad Science, MOAT and Forensiq and received their highest classifications as viewable, brand safe and premium.
In addition, we recently joined the TAG Registry as early adopters to improve transparency in digital advertising. For this LoopMe’s inventory underwent a vigorous background check and review process powered by Dun & Bradstreet and approved by TAG.
We would like to reassure our customers that we are working towards the highest possible standards to ensure brand safety and fraud free environments. Please reach out if you have any further questions: marketing@loopme.com