• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, May 13, 2016

I know any attempt to beat ad fraudsters should be received with a loud round of applause, and trust me, these hands would be clapping right now if they weren't typing this. But let me say it just once -- it's about blooming time, isn't it? I mean, fraudsters have been running a multibillion-dollar racket for several years now and it's only in fourth-quarter 2016 that industry guidelines to tackle fraud will be turned into a certification programme?

Having said that, the news that the JICWEBS cross-industry organisations have published guidelines on what publishers, media agencies, ad tech firms and advertisers can be doing to beat the criminals has to be well received. More to the point, the fact that there is now a certificate industry players can earn to prove their compliance with the measures has to be another welcome development.

The guidelines are pretty much common sense advice, which suggests companies only deal with people who get traffic from reputable sources and use trusted verification tools to ensure visits are from real people and not a legion of bots controlled by a criminal mastermind. They make sense -- and to be honest, it's what any decent company in the adverting industry should already be insisting that partners adhere to.

Certification is the most noteworthy development today. it's one thing to have a set of principles that any partner can claim they adhere to, and quite another to have a third-party certificate to back up those claims.

Will it beat fraud? Probably not. The rise of programmatic and the plethora of ad networks makes that a Herculean task. But will it allow those dedicated to beating fraud to find and work with one another? Yes, it almost certainly will. When decent companies are affected by so much rogue activity without any recourse to calling in the town's sheriff, the only thing they can do is circle the wagons and work with one another, letting in only those verified to same a common object of defeating fraud.