Device farms are a form of mobile ad fraud in which scammers manually carry out actions (like clicks, installs, and other types of engagement) to give the appearance of legitimate activity while sapping advertising budgets.
What is a device farm?
One of the older types of mobile ad fraud, device farms maintained for the purposes of ad fraud are illegal in much of the world.
Device farms for mobile fraud have become more prevalent as mobile advertising budgets have increased.
These are also known as “click farms” or “phone farms” and are employed for phony mobile clicks, installations, and engagement as well as for inflated app store download counts, ratings, and reviews.
How do device farms work?
Smart device farmers employ a variety of strategies to conceal their activity, including using a wide range of devices, hiding behind new IP addresses, enabling Limit Ad Tracking, or disguising themselves as DeviceID Reset Fraud (resetting their Device IDs with each install).
This fraud is also known as DeviceID Reset Marathons when it is carried out on a large scale.
Device farms exist all over the world and consume marketing budgets, despite the media’s frequent portrayal of them as a particular kind of fraud that only occurs in Asia.
