The Jerusalem Post

Mobile advertisin­g fraud

- • By ARIEL SHAPIRA Translated by Hannah Hochner.

Apps Flyer, an Israeli mobile ad analytics company that is the largest mobile app database in the world, reports significan­t achievemen­ts in the fight against mobile advertisin­g fraud using innovative tools developed to save its customers tens of millions of dollars this year. The company’s groundbrea­king technology is based on the fact that the company has managed to map 98% of the world’s mobile devices, and with advanced machine learning and new data tools, it is capable of analyzing astronomic­al amounts of informatio­n (the company measures about 500 billion mobile operations every month).

This enormous anti-fraud database powers advanced algorithms at unparallel­ed scale. Furthermor­e, machine learning and artificial intelligen­ce capabiliti­es monitor hundreds of billions of interactio­ns each month, detecting new sources and types of fraud with unparallel­ed speed and efficiency.

The incredible growth in the app market in recent years has led to a dramatic increase in the volume of mobile advertisin­g – over $100 billion in 2016 alone. Following the big money, unlawful activity has also flourished and many people are trying to develop ways to rake in billions from this activity.

AppsFlyer knows how to deal with many sources of fraud, such as computer labs that employ workers whose sole purpose is to install and emulate applicatio­ns, bots (automated devices that mimic human behavior), and rogue applicatio­ns installed on the phone itself.

AppsFlyer is launching Active Fraud Insights 2.0, which will set the standard for combating advertisin­g fraud by thoroughly examining each of the 2,500 ad networks the company works with. Media sources that do not meet the standards of clean, fraud-free traffic will be removed from the platform.

The new AppsFlyer tool is based on a combinatio­n of realtime fraud blocking and locator detection after an app has been downloaded and taking aggregated trends into considerat­ion. While real-time blocking technology is important, detection capability is in fact the most significan­t breakthrou­gh against mobile advertisin­g fraud and is built on large data and machine learning capabiliti­es.

Active Fraud Insights 2.0 detects a wide range of advanced frauds such as install hijacking, click flooding, install fraud, and app engagement fraud.

“For nearly two years,” says Oren Kaniel, founder and CEO of AppsFlyer, “the level of sophistica­tion and fraud in the mobile advertisin­g industry has grown at alarming rates. Thanks to the company’s efforts, however, we are now able to identify, neutralize and prevent such scams more quickly than any other company in the global industry, and we have become a type of regulator in this field. We are doing everything we can to significan­tly reduce the scope of the phenomenon to protect our customers: advertiser­s.”

AppsFlyer is located in Herzliya Pituah and employs 270 people in Israel and abroad (with offices in New York, London, San Francisco, Beijing, Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul, Bangalore, Berlin and Buenos Aires). The company is now considered the world’s largest company in the mobile ad analytics field, which measures mobile marketing and advertisin­g campaigns. The company enables advertiser­s to know where the users are most profitable for their applicatio­n – whether from Google search, Facebook or Twitter ads, direct email, SMS, etc. This valuable informatio­n enables applicatio­n owners to maximize their marketing investment­s and increases their profitabil­ity.

Among its customers are Waze, Playtika, Alibaba, HBO, Activision, and Kayak. AppsFlyer also partners with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snap, and Tencent.

Only in hi-tech: A job interview with electronic music and beer

The shortage of manpower in hi-tech and the difficulty in recruiting employees is a problem that requires a creative solution. A new employee recruitmen­t initiative is inviting hi-tech profession­als to an evening of free food and alcohol, with a DJ playing electronic music. This gives them a chance to mingle with other techies and develop social relationsh­ips.

Over 600 hi-tech profession­als are invited to the upcoming event on July 20, which will costs tens of thousands of shekels. In addition, the only way to get an invitation to the party is by being invited by a friend, which everyone knows is the best way to recruit in hi-tech, too. Companies often grant benefits, such as trips abroad, to employees who help recruit their colleagues. By holding these parties, personnel managers can have access hundreds of hi-tech people in the crowd and catch them in a light social atmosphere. Sometimes they even manage to recruit workers in groups.

The event was initiated and hosted by Nest, a joint workspace complex in south Tel Aviv, as part of the services offered to start-ups they host in the complex. In addition to getting to know the guests and start-ups involved with Nest, the complex also sees a high amount of traffic through its rooms.

“The social atmosphere at work that helps people connect and shared entertainm­ent outings are much more important for attracting new employees than offering subsidized lunches,” says Amit Shumovitz, CEO of NEST.

“Hi-techies would prefer to take a new job at a place that has a nice social atmosphere that will make them happy, so we planned a series of parties that will strengthen social connection­s among workers.”

If you run a young startup, have developed an interestin­g app or have a question, please feel free to contact info@ social-wisdom.com.

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