Mobile app developers earn $ 857 million over a year on ads that users haven’t seen

    Thousands of smartphone apps receive money from advertisers for ads that users don’t see. Forensiq, a company that analyzes fraud-fighting applications, found that some devices load ads at a frequency at which an ordinary person will not be able to view it. Later, the company conducted a study: at least one application with invisible advertising was launched on every hundredth smartphone in the United States.

    Forensiq conducted the study for ten days. Applications with invisible advertising were launched on one percent of smartphones in the United States and on two to three percent of devices in Europe and Asia. The company has identified more than five thousand applications on iOS and Android devices that spend up to two gigabytes of traffic per day, downloading ads. Some applications “show” up to twenty ads per minute, sometimes they scroll ads after closing the application.

    The head of Forensiq noted that the list included applications used by smartphone owners and performing specific tasks. These apps have hundreds of positive reviews on the App Store and Google Play. Company toldone of the suspects: this is a breastfeeding app from American Baby and developer Sevenlogics. The four-star app by users “doesn't show” ads from Olive Garden, Amazon, and IBM.

    In one of the comments on the application for moms they write that after a few months the use of the application began to frequently restart, freeze and shut down. “I also noticed that it has become harder to avoid clicking on pop-up ads, and now, I swear, my phone sends me to the App Store even before I touch the screen. Unfortunately, it’s too late for me to switch to another application, because all the data is stored in this. "

    In the comments on the games from Girls Games Only, they write about frequent brakes. Forensiq says that the games from this developer are constantly losing ads to Microsoft, Coca-Cola and Mercedes Benz, which users do not see.

    Advertisers paid $ 857 million per year for such ads.

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