How scammers are using your devices to steal money

Ad-fraud is one of the most profitable activities for organized crime today. The scammers are sophisticated, disciplined, and numerous, and they might be using your IoT devices to rip people off.

Over the past decade, there has been relatively little of this kind of cybercrime in Japan, but that's changing as the ad-fraud crime networks go global. Japan has to catch up and catch up fast. Unfortunately, Japan defenses have been rather poor.

Today we sit down and talk with someone who is fixing that.  Satoko Ohtsuki is the founder and CEO of Phybbit, Japan's largest ad-fraud prevention network, and she's going to explain the biggest scam you've probably never heard of.

Of course, we talk about the different kinds of ad-fraud and what is being done to combat them, but we also talk about how she was pushed into entrepreneurship, and the challenges of raising money (and raising children) as a female founder in Japan.

It's a great discussion with one of the most interesting founders in Japan,  and I think you will really enjoy it.


Show Notes

The global scale of ad-fraud
How to bluff your way into starting a leading software company
The main kinds of ad-fraud
Google & Facebook's conflict of interest in solving ad fraud
How scammers try to get around the fraud countermeasures
Who exactly are the ad-fraud scammers and where are they located?
How your devices and home electronics are helping the scammers
The challenge of raising venture money as a woman in Japan
Satoko’s advice for women raising money in Japan
Balancing the demands of a growing startup and growing children
How Japanese VCs stop Japanese startups from going global
How the 2020 Olympics are affecting venture investment in Japan


Links from the Founder

Everything you wanted to know about Phybbit

Phybbit's 2019 Whitepaper on Ad Fraud


Check out Satoko's blog
Follow Satoko on Twitter @satoko90
Friend her on Facebook

Leave a comment
Transcript
Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs.

I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.

Today we are going to be talking about ad-fraud. Ad-fraud is a multi-billion-dollar problem that a lot of people don’t really want to see get solved.

You see, when you run an internet ad campaign or participate in an affiliate network, some of the clicks or installs you pay for are from real people interested in your product or service, but a lot of them are bots that are simply scamming money for the site owners.

In fact, a surprising number of ad-clicks are bots. Internet advertising is a $280 billion global business and it's estimated that somewhere between 25% and 50% of it is fraud.

Well today, we are going to sit down with someone who is doing something about that.

Satoko Ohtsuki founded Phybbit to combat ad fraud, and it has now become the largest ad fraud detection service in Japan.

Satoko and I talk about how Phybbit is using artificial intelligence to combat the seemly endless stream of online ad fraudsters, the challenges she faced raising money as a woman founder in Japan, and how you, yes you in particular, might be helping out the ad fraud scammers without even knowing it.

But you know, Satoko tells that story much better than I can, so let’s get right to the interview.

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Interview
Tim: Cheers!

Satoko: Cheers!

Tim: So, I'm sitting here with Satoko Ohtsuki of Phybbit, so thanks for sitting down with me.

Satoko: Thank you too. Thank you for your time.

Tim: Phybbit makes Spider AF.

Satoko: Yes.

Tim: And the AF stands for 'Anti-Fraud'? 'Ad Fraud'?

Satoko: Ad Fraud.

Tim: Ad Fraud.

Satoko: So, let me introduce what is Ad Fraud first. Ad Fraud is exactly as it is written, it’s advertisement fraud. For example, if I was a blogger, I will put some advertisement spot inside of my blog a...