Google has acquired Spider.io, a London based start-up, known for its work in exposing cyber threats targeting digital marketing business.
The deal will be formally announced sometime today, but signs of the acquisition have already popped up on Spider.io website as well as DoubleClick Advertiser Blog.
The online advertising industry as a whole is facing challenges from botnets, malicious software as well as other schemes employed by online scammers in a bid to grab a share out of the huge $116billion industry.
Scams are one of the main deterrents and online marketers, who pour in millions of dollars into online advertising and digital marketing, are spooked considering how rapidly these scams are spreading. According to estimates, online ad fraud and scams cost internet and advertising companies a whopping $10 billion a year.
“Today we’re announcing our latest investment: we’ve completed an acquisition of spider.io, a company that has spent the past 3 years building a world-class ad fraud fighting operation”, announced Neal Mohan, VP, Display Advertising at Google. “Our immediate priority is to include their fraud detection technology in our video and display ads products, where they will complement our existing efforts.”
Mohan revealed that in the long run Google will be improving the metrics used by advertisers and publishers to determine the value of digital media and will strive to provider a cleaner picture of which of their campaigns are delivering value.
Spider.io has exposed several high profile scams including perpetrators who have hacking into personal computers across the globe to create botnets in a bid to impersonate genuine web traffic and generate fake advertising views.
The company can also be attributed to discovery of a software known to hijack web users’ visits to YouTube and also inserted an extra layer of ads.
