Social and Web Computing

Gareth Tyson

WEEK 8:
ONLINE WEB ADVERTISING
Recap...
THE WEB IS A GRAPH…
THE WEB IS A GRAPH…

https://www.goog
le.com/search?q=
Cat https://en.wikip
edia.org/wiki/Ca
t
https://en.wikip
edia.org/wiki/Ca
t_communication
HOW ARE WEBPAGES INDEXED?
HOW ARE WEBPAGES INDEXED?

Seed Set: http://facebook.com

HOW ARE WEBPAGES INDEXED?

Seed Set: http://facebook.com

DEGREE DISTRIBUTION FOR THE WEB
Only a small
number of pages
that have a
degree above
100K

Most webpages
receive few
hyperlinks
THE RANDOM SURFER MODEL
THE RANDOM SURFER MODEL

33% chance of traversing each

hyperlink
THE RANDOM SURFER MODEL
50% chance of traversing each
hyperlink
THE RANDOM SURFER MODEL 50% chance of traversing each
hyperlink
THE RANDOM SURFER MODEL
DID YOU SPOT ANYTHING?

14
THE RANDOM SURFER MODEL
THE RANDOM SURFER MODEL
3
2

1
THE RANDOM SURFER MODEL
30%
20%

20%

20%

10%
PAGERANK
Today’s objectives
1. Understand the principles that are driving
online advertising
2. Understand the technologies that underpin
advertising engines
3. Understand some key issues and challenges
in the domain
Principles of online
advertising
We have a problem...
● The Internet has many
services
● But nobody wants to
pay for them!
● How do we monetise
things?
 What is advertising?

Well, if you don’t know, you’ve probably not

used the Internet in the last
20 years...
What is advertising?
What is online advertising?
What is online advertising?
What is online advertising?
Where does online advertising stand?
Why is online advertising popular?
Why is online advertising popular?
● Low cost

Source: http://www.itvmedia.co.uk
Why is online advertising popular?
● Low cost

Source: http://www.roadshowadvertising.com/
Why is online advertising popular?
● Low cost
○ E.g. $1 for 1k
impressions

Source: http://www.roadshowadvertising.com/
Why is online advertising popular?
● Low cost
○ E.g. $1 for 1k
impressions
● Flexible
Why is online advertising popular?
● Low cost
○ E.g. $1 for 1k
impressions
● Flexible
● Targeted
Why is online advertising popular?
● Low cost
○ E.g. $1 for 1k
impressions
● Flexible
● Targeted
● Auditable
Why is online advertising popular?
● Low cost
○ E.g. $1 for 1k
impressions
● Flexible
● Targeted
● Auditable
● Huge reach
Types of ads
● Graphical ads
Types of ads
● Graphical ads
○ Interactive ads
Types of ads
● Graphical ads
○ Interactive ads
● Text ads
○ Closely linked to
search
Types of ads
● Graphical ads
○ Interactive ads
● Text ads
○ Closely linked to
search
● Social media
promotions
How does it work?
How does it work?
● An interplay of several stakeholders

● All who are after cash!

Ad players
● Advertiser/marketer: has a service/item to provide
(food, DVDs)
● Publisher/Provider: Provides the content & incentive
for the user to view the ads (websites/phone app)
● Ad Provider/Broker: Provides the ad to be displayed
on the customer’s device & pays the content provider
and telco and charges the advertiser (Google)
● Telco: Provides the infrastructure for ad delivery and
report collection (DT)
Ad players
Content
Provider
Marketer
Ad Broker
Ad players
Content
Provider
Marketer
Ad Broker
Ad players
Content
Provider
Marketer
Ad Broker
Ad players
Content
Provider
Marketer
Ad Broker
Ad players
Content
Provider
Marketer
Ad Broker
Ad players
Content
Provider
Marketer
Ad Broker
Ad players
Content
Provider
Marketer
Ad Broker
Ad players I get to make money
from my website!
Content
Provider
Marketer
Ad Broker
Ad players I get to make money
marketers without
having to build any
websites! Content
Provider
Marketer
Ad Broker
Ad players I make lots of profit
because people see
my adverts!
Content
Provider
Marketer
Ad Broker
How does it work?

www.pie.com
How does it work?

www.pie.com

GET home.html
How does it work?

www.pie.com
How does it work?

www.pie.com
How does it work?

www.pie.com

Ad tag
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ADJ/publisher/zone;topic=abc;sbtpc=def;cat=ghi;kw=xyz;t
ile=1;slot=728x90.1;sz=728x90;ord=7268140825331981?
How does it work?

www.pie.com

Ad slot

Ad tag
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ADJ/publisher/zone;topic=abc;sbtpc=def;cat=ghi;kw=xyz;t
ile=1;slot=728x90.1;sz=728x90;ord=7268140825331981?
How does it work?

www.pie.com

Ad tag
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ADJ/publisher/zone;topic=abc;sbtpc=def;cat=ghi;kw=xyz;t
ile=1;slot=728x90.1;sz=728x90;ord=7268140825331981?
How does it work?

www.pie.com

The ad server hosted by the ad broker

Ad tag
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ADJ/publisher/zone;topic=abc;sbtpc=def;cat=ghi;kw=xyz;t
ile=1;slot=728x90.1;sz=728x90;ord=7268140825331981?
How does it work?

www.pie.com

The type of ad. ADJ is images via

javascript. Others include ADF (only image
creatives in a frame), ADX (only image
creatives served through streaming
technologies)
Ad tag
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ADJ/publisher/zone;topic=abc;sbtpc=def;cat=ghi;kw=xyz;t
ile=1;slot=728x90.1;sz=728x90;ord=7268140825331981?
How does it work?

www.pie.com

The publisher of the ad, e.g. NYTimes or

pie.com

Ad tag
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ADJ/publisher/zone;topic=abc;sbtpc=def;cat=ghi;kw=xyz;t
ile=1;slot=728x90.1;sz=728x90;ord=7268140825331981?
How does it work?

www.pie.com

The zone of the advert, e.g. homepage,

sports page

Ad tag
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ADJ/publisher/zone;topic=abc;sbtpc=def;cat=ghi;kw=xyz;t
ile=1;slot=728x90.1;sz=728x90;ord=7268140825331981?
How does it work?

www.pie.com

More parameters, e.g. topic of publisher,

location on page, size etc.

Ad tag
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ADJ/publisher/zone;topic=abc;sbtpc=def;cat=ghi;kw=xyz;t
ile=1;slot=728x90.1;sz=728x90;ord=7268140825331981?
How does it work?

www.pie.com

doubleclick.net
 How does it work?

www.pie.com

GET
http://ad.doubleclick.net/ADJ/publisher/zone;topic=abc;sbtpc=def;cat=ghi;kw=xyz;tile=1;slot=
728x90.1;sz=728x90;ord=7268140825331981?

doubleclick.net
How does it work?
Hmm, which ad
should I return...
www.pie.com

doubleclick.net
How does it work?

www.pie.com

doubleclick.net

Uses redirect (302) to send to marketer’s ad

server and counts the impression (audit)
How does it work?

www.pie.com

doubleclick.net

ads.pepsi.com
How does it work?

www.pie.com

doubleclick.net

GET ad
ads.pepsi.com
How does it work?

www.pie.com

doubleclick.net

ads.pepsi.com
How does it work?

www.pie.com

Or redirects client via a Content

Delivery Network to fetch the ad

doubleclick.net

ads.pepsi.com
Pricing models
● Cost per mile: the advertiser pays for the number of
people served by the ad.
○ Typical for graphical ads
● Cost per click: the advertiser pays for only the number
of people who click on the ad.
○ Typical for textual ads
● Cost per action: the advertiser pays for the number of
people who complete a transaction.
○ Typically used for things like shopping
 Mobile ads

Vallina-Rodriguez, Narseo, et al. "Breaking for commercials: characterizing mobile advertising." Proceedings of the 2012 Internet measurement
conference. 2012.
Mobile ads
● 73% of Android Apps are free

● Mobile advertising is an important source of

income for mobile developers
Mobile ads: Why?
● Enables contextual and location-aware ads
○ Can allow greater personalisation etc.
● Often can be sophisticated and interactive
(e.g. integrated into games)
● Can reach people anywhere
○ When did you last leave your phone at home?
● Great for instant feedback for advertisers!
 Mobile ad players
App developer
(publisher)

£
££££
Mediation Services
Usage stats

Mobile User
Mobile ads
● Ads generate
huge amounts of
traffic 50% of Android devices,
● Top 10 objects Ads have 5% of volume
have 1% of all
traffic
Mobile ad players
Do users really click?!
But what is the downside?
Issues: Click Fraud
Click fuel the Internet!

• Not just adverts

• YouTube views
• Re-tweets
• Facebook “likes”
Who benefits?
Who benefits?
Who benefits?
Who benefits?
Who benefits?
• If user loads advert
• Ask.com gets money!

• If user clicks advert

• Ask.com gets more money!

• But the advertiser pays…

How can we implement click fraud?
• Why not use a botnet?
• Infect millions of computer

• Have a commander control

the “bots”

• Ask them to request adverts

How can we implement click fraud?
How can we implement click fraud?
How can we implement click fraud?
Let’s talk about one
specific attack…
 ZeroAccess click fraud botnet
• A large P2P botnet - mainly
Bitcoin mining and click fraud

• Esimate 1.9 million infected

machines
• ZeroAccess estimated to
produce a million fraudulent
clicks a day
• Losses to advertisers
estimated at $2.7 million per
month
Pearce, Paul, et al. "Characterizing large-scale click fraud in zeroaccess." Proceedings of the 2014 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and
Communications Security. 2014.
Auto clicking module
• ZeroAccess simulates normal
browser behavior of a user
clicking an ad

• Retrieves URL list from C&C

server

• But clicks occur rapidly,

require no user participation,
and are not visible to the use
Serpent module
• Serpent sends real users to
ads

• Serpent stays dormant until

users visit search engine
• It sends queries to C&C
server, which replies with ad
click URLs

• When users clicks, serpent

redirects to ad click URL
Smart pricing mitigations
• Smart-pricing takes an economic approach to mitigating the
impact of click fraud

• Calculates a factor between 0 and 1 for each publisher

based on the probability of conversions generated by traffic
sent by that publisher

• Conversions are actionable business results as defined by

the advertiser such as an online sale, newsletter sign-up,
etc.
So, what were their data sources?
• Worked with an ad provider to record
clicks
• DNS data for domains generated by
malware
• Supernode data covering list of
supernodes involved in P2P botnet
control
• 56 infected machines running
ZeroAccess
• Milker data, covering the adverts
targeted by the botnet
With a twist…
• Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit and Europol
orchestrated a takedown of the Serpent and auto-
clicking C&C servers
• Malware authors distributed a new set of modules that
halted all click fraud activity but left the P2P network intact

• Inspection revealed the ASCII text “WHITE FLAG” in

apparent surrender
Temporal patterns
Identifying ZeroAccess clicks
• Calculating `taint’
• The fraction of clicks that
come from an IP address in
the super node data

• Compare before & after

takedown to check for
noticeable drop
Serpent vs auto clicking
• The dirty ads were subject to the
smart-pricing discount

• Serpent users forced to go to the

advertiser pages did not convert
enough

• Still made money, albeit with the

smart-pricing discount
 Issues: Sensitive
Behavioural Advertising

Cabañas, José González, Ángel Cuevas, and Rubén Cuevas. "Unveiling and quantifying Facebook exploitation of sensitive personal data for
advertising purposes." 27th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 18). 2018.
 Facebook Ad Manager
• Allows advertisers to define their audience on Facebook

• Supports a wide range of criteria, e.g.

• Location (country, city)
• Demographics (gender, age, language)
• Behaviors (mobile device, OS and/or web browser used,
traveling frequency)
• Interests (sports, food, cars, beauty, etc.)

• Users are also tagged with these attributes (voluntarily or

automatically
https://www.facebook.com/ads/manager
Carrascosa, Juan Miguel, et al. "I always feel like somebody's watching me: measuring online behavioural advertising." Proceedings of the
11th ACM Conference on Emerging Networking Experiments and Technologies. 2015.
 Dataset: Data Valuation Tool for
Facebook Users (FDVT)
• Estimates your value to
Facebook

• Provides data on
• 4577 users, with 5.5M ad Median of 474
preferences
• 126K unique ad
preferences

https://www.facebook.com/ads/manager
Defining sensitive
• Label each ad preference as sensitive vs.
non-sensitive

• Sensitive Personal Data by the GDPR:

• Data revealing racial or ethnic origin
• Data revealing political opinions
• Data revealing religious or
philosophical beliefs
• Data concerning health
• Data concerning sex life and sexual
orientation
Why does FB allocate preferences?
Presence of sensitive ad preferences
Impact of demographics

Age Gender
Proving these beyond doubt…
Objectives
1. Understand the principles that are driving
online advertising
2. Understand the technologies that underpin
advertising engines
3. Understand some key challenges that
remain