How can click farms be combated?
Cint’s Trust Score model — our proprietary tool that pairs AI and machine learning to prevent fraud before it happens — helps us combat fraudulent attacks of this kind.
Trust Score leverages our enormous data pool to detect suspicious behaviors and fraudulent actors, making the most of the aforementioned AI and machine learning algorithms to proactively prevent fraud and score our supply network on a respondent-by-respondent basis.
The critical ingredients for success when it comes to combatting these threats lie in both detection – being able to spot patterns across thousands of customers, partners, and billions of transactions – and action, thanks to cutting edge, proprietary AI technology, and leading third-party bot detection tools.
In a recent Customer Story interview, Nik Samoylov, founder of Conjointly, a platform that specializes in conjoint analysis, credited Cint with an 11% reduction in the number of low quality completes.
The Cint team, Samoylov says, helps with, “Weeding out bad actors, bots, click farms, and all those nasty things,” which in turn “has really helped with improvement in quality.”
The critical ingredients for success when it comes to combating the threat of click farms lie in both detection and action. This is where Cint’s Trust Score — our proprietary tool that pairs AI and machine learning to prevent fraud before it happens — helps us combat click farm attacks in tandem with our expansive suite of security measures. Trust Score leverages Cint’s enormous data pool to detect suspicious behaviours and fraudulent actors, making the most of AI and machine learning algorithms to proactively prevent fraud and score our supply network on a respondent-by-respondent basis.
In a world increasingly focused on AI & automation, it’s important to remember the power of the human touch in the fight against click farms. Cint has a dedicated Trust and Safety Operations team focused on identifying improvement opportunities, enforcing policies & running a range of programs, including ones that detect abnormal reconciliation behaviours from both buyers and suppliers. These programs promote open conversations around the cause of high reconciliations and bring a focus on the actions everyone can take to tackle click farms as they evolve.
In a recent Customer Story interview, Nik Samoylov, founder of Conjointly, a platform that specializes in conjoint analysis, credited Cint with an 11% reduction in the number of low-quality completes.
Click farms are a problem for insights professionals for various reasons. Researchers are provided with false survey data, which hampers the overall quality of research. This leads to unreliable and inaccurate insights, making it difficult for research partners to draw conclusions confidently from their data.
Bad survey results can have real-life implications, as data is used to guide decision-making processes, develop data-driven strategies, and even be reported to the general public as part of news reports.
One of the challenges of click farms is the scale, speed, and skill at which they operate, along with the partnering of humans and technology, making them increasingly difficult to detect. Bots and scripts can complete surveys quickly, whilst human workers can step in to bypass technologies designed to stop automated technology, such as Captcha checks.
Everyone hurts when it comes to click farms, losing out on both time and money. Researchers risk having to rerun their surveys to get accurate insights, while suppliers are faced with having to clean out their supply and attempt to claw back any incentives redeemed by fraudsters.
The Cint team, Samoylov says, helps with, “Weeding out bad actors, bots, click farms, and all those nasty things,” which in turn “has really helped with improvement in quality.”
What is the Cint stance on click farms?
“Click farms are not unbeatable. Just like fraudsters, we are leveraging the best of humans and technology to win. We “deploy our humans” to run operational programs focused on fraud detection and prevention, and provide direct support to both suppliers and customers when fraud hits. Used in combination with industry-leading fraud fighting technology like Trust Score we have a recipe for success.” — Shelby Downes, Senior Program Manager
