Our Glossary

Cache: Is a computer device, either hardware or software, that is designed to store data in a way to be able to serve it up faster when the data is requested again. 

Fewer prospective customers fill out call back forms than newsletter subscriptions and the like. As such, these are generally higher quality leads. That is unless they're fake. Fraudsters often fill out these forms with other people's information in order to receive compensation for doing so. The issue comes in when you call someone who didn't personally provide their consent, which may result in a TCPA-related lawsuit.

CAPTCHA is an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”.  It is a system designed to identify humans versus automated software. This was initially used to block bots from entering certain areas of websites.  As bots became more sophisticated, CAPTCHA software had to evolve, however, it cannot stop human fraud. 

Chatbots are programs designed to communicate with people using artificial intelligence. Chatbots specialize in answering specific questions or doing certain tasks. For instance, your bank account may have a 24/7 chatbot that will notify you when any suspicious activity happens within your account. Companies can deploy simple chatbots on platforms like Slack and Facebook Messenger or a more advanced chatbot like Amazon’s Alexa. 

Chatbots can be both good and bad. Bad chatbots emulate human interaction by engaging in conversation. These bots attempt to acquire personal information and often reside on service websites like dating sites, messaging apps, or chat rooms. 

A Civil Investigative Demand (CID) is an administrative subpoena that allows federal government agencies to request extraordinary amounts of information from private entities without going through any formal court procedures. - Wikipedia

A sneaky advertisement that captures your attention and entices you to click on their link (aka the bait). Once you click on the ad you only see a small piece of content. To see more, you need to click next to move to each page to see additional content while getting exposed to a large number of ads. An example would be “Click here to see the 10 ugliest dogs”. When you click, they show you one image of a dog with a bunch of ads surrounding the content and a button to see the next picture.

Advertisers are all too familiar with click bots. These bots intentionally visit sites and click on ads with the goal of warping ad campaign data and burning through an advertiser’s budget. For advertisers who pay on a CPC basis, click bots can be devastating. 

Pay Per Click or Cost Per Click advertising is where an advertiser can place their ads onto a site or network and they are only charged when someone clicks on their ad. Fraudsters take advantage of this type of marketing by using bots, malware, or humans to click on ads to make money. In some cases, click fraud is committed by competitors who are trying to deplete the competing company’s advertising budget. 

Fraudsters use the concept of a Denial of Service (DOS) to attack networks in order to steal money from their advertisers. With a click spamming attack, the fraudster floods the network with enough clicks to attempt to overwhelm the networks billing software and trick it into paying the fraudsters. 

Analytics are at the crux of identifying fraud, providing a way to capture concerning trends that highlight problematic activity. Anura's extensive dashboard allows users to customize reporting with the ability to drill down multiple levels, highlighting areas of primary concern. This tool allows you to pinpoint exactly where the fraud is coming from in order to block fraud with a few simple clicks.

Content Delivery Network is a network that takes content from your server and caches it in high-speed servers around the globe helping to serve up content faster to people regardless of their location.

Content marketing is the process of planning, creating, distributing, sharing, and publishing content to reach your target audience. It can boost factors like brand awareness, sales, reach, interactions, and loyalty. (HubSpot) 

An ad unit that is targeted to the content of the website. A script will “read” the page the ad is going to show on, interpret what the page is about, and then fetch an ad that is related to the content. A popular example of a contextual ad system is: Google Ad Sense.

A Cookie is a text file within the user’s browser that a website can read and write small pieces of data to and from. Designed to provide a way for a user’s data to be remembered, Cookies store all types of stateful information between the user and the website, like browser or shopping history, login credentials, and other types of data.

Cookie stuffing is a sub-area of affiliate marketing fraud. Cookies are a big part of tracking web traffic and activities, but cookie stuffing uses this tool illegitimately to tag users. Fraudsters who cookie stuff, tag web users with cookies from unrelated websites that they did not visit without permission. These stuffed cookies affect how the activities of users are seen online. If, for example, an affiliate marketer directs a customer to make a purchase, the cookies will link back to the fraudster, who will receive credit for the sale.

Online copyright infringement is rampant, especially with so much data being shared every day. To combat plagiarism and theft, copyright bots scour the web for stolen content, such as music and video clips. Sites like YouTube use copyright bots to flag and disable uploaded content that could be in violation of copyright laws.

The billing method the advertiser is charged each time a visitor completes a predetermined action such as completing a purchase, filling out a form or downloading an app. CPA is sometimes referred to as “Cost Per Acquisition”.

The billing method the advertiser is charged each time their ad is clicked. It is also known as pay per click (PPC).

The billing method the advertiser is charged each time a visitor successfully completes a lead form.

The billing method the advertiser is charged for every one thousand times their ad is displayed. It is typically referred to as “Cost Per Thousand”, however, CPM actually stands for “Cost Per Mille”, Mille is Latin for one thousand.

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets.  It is used to keep a common look and feel of your website including fonts, colors, layouts, and more while making it easier to make site-wide changes within a single document.

CTV stands for “connected TV” and is any television set used to stream video over the internet. These are most often videos that are streamed via apps that are downloaded. Devices that are classified as CTV devices are Smart TV – a TV with a built-in internet connection and media platform. (Wikipedia)