Two Websites Accused Of Faking Online Traffic

The publisher of Newsweek and the International Business Times has been engaging in fraudulent online traffic practices that helped it secure a major ad buy from a US government agency, according to a new report released Thursday by independent ad fraud researchers.

According to a BuzzFeed posting, IBTimes.com, the publisher’s US business site, last year won a significant portion of a large video and display advertising campaign for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency. Social Puncher, a consulting firm that investigates online ad fraud, alleges in its report that the ads were displayed to an audience on IBTimes.com that includes a significant amount of “cheap junk traffic with a share of bots.”

The CFPB’s ad budget was the subject of criticism from Republican lawmakers after the Daily Caller reported last year that it had awarded more than $40 million in contracts to a single ad agency, GMMB, which is one of the top Democratic media strategists.

The CFPB was created in 2011 as a result of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. President Trump recently tweeted that the bureau “has been a total disaster,” and installed his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, as its new director.

Neither the CFPB or GMMB are accused of taking part in, or having knowledge of, ad fraud on IBTimes.com.

A CFPB spokesperson told BuzzFeed News the bureau is looking into the allegations raised in Social Puncher’s report.