A new email scam threatens website owners with a flood of bot traffic to get their Google AdSense accounts suspended, Krebs on Security reports. By directing a large amount of bot traffic to a company’s banner ads, the scammers could trigger Google’s automated anti-fraud protection. (The Verge)
Google has abruptly pulled over 500 Chrome extensions from its Web Store that researchers discovered were stealing browsing data and executing click fraud and malvertising after installing themselves on the computers of millions of users. (Naked Security)
GumGum is announcing that it’s raised $22 million from existing investors Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, NEA spinout NewView Capital and Upfront Ventures. CEO Phil Schraeder said he’ll use the funds to pursue a more aggressive acquisition strategy. (Tech Crunch)
Connexity-owned Hitwise, which specialized in online measurement, announced that it would cease US operations this week. The closure is “due to events outside of our control,” Hitwise said on its homepage. The week prior, one of Hitwise’s partners, marketing analytics firm Jumpshot, was shuttered by parent company Avast, a cybersecurity firm, following an investigation into Jumpshot’s privacy practices. (adExchanger)
Revenue decreased 3% year over year to $653 million in Q4 2019, according to Criteo’s earnings report Tuesday. And the company expects revenue to drop 10% in 2020. But CEO Megan Clarken, the former Nielsen chief commercial officer who took over in November 2019, said Criteo has the pieces to be a major player as a full-stack DSP business. (adExchanger)
During this episode of “Marketing Today,” host Alan Hart interviews Kevin Frisch, who was recently the CMO of Wag and before that the head of performance marketing, and CRM for Uber. Frisch discusses the fraud case between Uber and its suppliers of performance marketing and advertising. Frisch shares what happened, what was the trigger that launched the investigation, how they diagnosed what was going on, and several measurement challenges along the way. (Marketing Today Podcast)
John Gentry, OpenX CEO, believes there is a lot of luck when it comes to weaving through a successful career, but he also seems a bit modest when talking about his own. Chairman Tim Cadogan, former CEO, officially passed the reins to Gentry on Feb. 14 to become CEO at GoFundMe. (MediaPost)