There’s a fascinating HBS working paper by Benjamin Edelman, “Securing Online Advertising: Rustlers and Sheriffs in the New Wild West”, which investigates the many types of malicious advertising on the internet–where a hacker will use advertising to install programs that track a user, cause popups, or create annoying toolbars. Some of the top online merchants have been duped into assisting these hackers in their efforts as well, which goes to show how prevalent this problem is. From the abstract:
Read the news of recent computer security guffaws, and it’s striking how many problems stem from online advertising. Advertising is the bedrock of web sites that are provided without charge to end users, so advertising is everywhere. But advertising security gaps are equally widespread: from “malvertisement” banner ads pushing rogue anti-spyware software, to click fraud, to spyware and adware, the security lapses of online advertising are striking.
During the past five years, I have uncovered hundreds of online advertising scams defrauding thousands of users—not to mention all the web’s top merchants. This chapter summarizes some of what I’ve found—and what users and advertisers can do to protect themselves.
