An Economic Analysis of Online Ad Fraud Deterrence

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Chen, Min; Kumar, Subodha; Ray, Abhishek
• 署名单位: George Mason University; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Temple University
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2022.02201
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: ad fraud; Online advertising; ad networks; publishers; game-theoretical modeling

摘要

Ad fraud is increasingly becoming a major concern in online advertising, with publishers being one of the key sources of fraudulent ad traffic. Although ad fraud deterrence is a critical problem from both technical and economic perspectives, past research has not considered their interplay. Our paper fills this critical gap by building a gametheoretic model wherein an ad network (an intermediary between publishers and advertisers) strategically leverages its technological tool (the configuration of a given fraud detection technology) and economic tool (the payment to publishers) to deter ad fraud and maximize profits effectively. Our analysis generates several interesting findings. For example, as the fraud detection technology and fraud generation techniques improve, we show that although the ad network needs to respond by making the technology configuration stricter to dampen fraud motives and admit less ad traffic, it may sometimes need to increase the payment. Furthermore, although many stakeholders advocate instituting strict legislation and policies to reduce malicious publishers, we show that this may sometimes fail to reduce fraud traffic and even hurt an ad network's profit. In addition, our results provide other useful implications that present a new theoretical perspective on the incentive problems in ad fraud generation and detection. Our study also draws valuable insights for ad networks into implementing effective ad fraud deterrence policies and for advertisers to audit and monitor their ad campaign performance.