On being contacted by TOI to confirm the extent of the problem in Indian market, a Google spokesperson declined to give details. However, he said the company was working “to remove monetary incentives” for spammers.

The fraud was detected in ads bought through a platform called Double Click Bid Manager (DBM) over the last few months, the WSJ reported. DBM is a bidding platform for online advertisers and publishers that Google acquired in 2008. An industry report in May estimated global advertising losses through automation or bot fraud to reach $6.5 million in 2017.

The issue has been long acknowledged in India. Sagar Khatar of MouthShut com said the website shifted to a different ad management platform in 2013 after having trouble computing the number of ad clicks on DBM. “We can’t say if any traf fic is fake. But Google click numbers often did not match other relevant numbers that we were tracking.”

The WSJ has reported the refund amount to be up to “hundreds of thousands of dollars” even as some advertisers confirmed receiving repayments that amount to “less money than you would spend on a sandwich.”

For the latest news, tech news, breaking news headlines and live updates checkout Gadgetsnow.com

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Source: Gadgetsnow

The post Google India to refund ad companies after detecting fraud appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The leaked document was written by two Australian Facebook execs and included how monitoring users’ posts, comments and interactions could help figure out when people felt “defeated”, “overwhelmed”, “stressed”, “anxious”, “stupid”, “nervous”, “silly”, “useless” and a “failure”.

Information about users’ mood could therefore be added to the data that Facebook sells advertisers. Currently Facebook provides ad buyers with user’s personal information including relationship status, location, age, and how often and in what manner people use the social media website. Emotional state might be a lucrative addition to this data.

The methods described in the document could be used on kids as young as 14 (Facebook’s minimum age is 13) who “need a confidence boost”. The documents also show that Facebook has been developing covert tools to better obtain useful insights into how Australian and New Zealand teenagers are feeling.

There is clearly merit to the accusations as Facebook has already issued an apology for targeting such a young audience. Though they admitted it was wrong to target children in this way and ordered an internal investigation, they did not mention whether or not exploiting people when they’re feeling vulnerable is ethical.

Facebook has stated that its research was in line with privacy and legal protections but news.com.au reports that the company may have breached Australian guidelines for advertising and marketing towards children.

Update May 1: Facebook responded to The Australian’s story saying that the company does not offer tools to target people based on their emotional state. The social media giant claims that the analysis was only done to help marketers understand how people express themselves on Facebook.

However, Facebook admits that the research did not follow established process of how the company reviews its research. Facebook says that it’s “reviewing the details to correct the oversight”.

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Source: Thenextweb

The post Facebook accused of targeting vulnerable teens with predatory ads appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.