Online Ad Industry Must Do More to Combat Malicious Advertising, Some Industry Experts Say
Combating advertising carrying malware -- known as malvertising -- is a responsibility that must be shared by all in online advertising, said some experts in the Internet advertising industry. The industry must act quickly to find solutions to avoid the need for legislation and maintain a high level of consumer trust, some professionals said.
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Malvertising is “a concern of all the groups, because all are affected and hurt,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of government relations for the Association of National Advertisers. “Everyone in the ad supply chain is touching that ad,” said Craig Spiezle, executive director of the Online Trust Alliance. Agencies, advertisers, networks, publishers and websites “all have responsibility for the short-term and longer-term aspects of the problem.” The OTA devised voluntary guidelines aimed at advancing the effort (WID Oct 19 p2). “We're working on how to get the advertisers to use these best practices on a voluntary basis."
Some industry leaders have been slow to put preventive mechanisms in place, said Michael Caruso, CEO of Clickfacts, a security solutions provider. “Nobody wants to take responsibility for it.” There needs to be “an overall arching plan where everybody’s responsible,” he said. The industry should pay more money and raise CPM charges, he said.
While publishers and advertisers are adopting practices like monitoring and using malware detection solutions, the ease of use of the Internet and expertise of attackers makes it difficult to implement more-effective solutions, some professionals said. The attackers are smart, they said. “You're dealing with sophisticated companies,” Jaffe said. “As you come up with ways to block their ads, they come up with ways to get around the system.” “Sometimes it’s not directly attributable,” Caruso said. The businesses selling to the fake advertisers “just write it off as a loss,” he said.
They're adept at duping ad networks into thinking that they work for other entities,” said Dan Salsburg, assistant director in the FTC Division of Marketing Practices. The FTC has gone after advertisers that have spread malicious code and scareware, he said. “We can go before a judge and say, ‘This is what these people are doing,’ and obtain orders” and shut down the sites, he said.
Sales representatives who purchase advertising need more education, said Roy de Souza, CEO of Zedo, an ad serving company. “When you talk to some sales reps, you get the feeling they could have known the ad wasn’t legitimate, but they were just looking to close the sale.” Companies should have some penalties in place to eliminate incentives for overlooking illegitimate ads, he said.
Without better solutions, the industry stands to lose consumer trust and gain more regulation, some said. “The industry is short-sighted right now,” said Craig Calder, a Clickfacts spokesman. “If the industry can’t protect consumers, at some point the government organizations are gonna have to step in.”
"The best people to combat it are technology providers, because we have the resources and technology skills,” de Souza said. However, “it’s important for the government to prosecute people,” he said.