“As a result of this elaborate scheme, the defendant falsified billions of ad views and caused businesses to pay more than $7 million for ads that were never actually viewed by real human internet users,” the Department of Justice said. Although The New York Times was named as a “victim” by the Justice Department, the publication declined to clarify whether it paid for fake ad views or whether its website was spoofed by one of Zhukov’s fake sites. Nestlé, the parent company of Purina, did not respond to a request for comment.
Some companies have taken matters into their own hands. In 2017 Uber sued one of its advertising agencies for
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