At the first glance, online advertising is nothing more than simply a means of promoting goods and services. However, present-day advertisement infrastructure has long surpassed the marketing space. It turned into a powerful tool for collecting data, tracking users, and even distributing malware.
The Mobilewalla case is quite illustrative as the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has started an investigation against this company. It was revealed that this company was illegally collecting precise geolocation data of millions of users without their consent by using real-time bidding mechanisms. The collected information specified attended hospitals, religious institutions, and even protest sites. This data was sold to third parties, allowing to trace behavioral patterns and potentially expose people to risk.
Another substantially threatening trend is the use of ads as a cyber attack tool. Fraudsters actively buy ad spots in search engines to promote phishing sites or malware. They create copies of popular services that get shown as ads at the top of search results. Moreover, certain SEO methods are used for these sites to appear in the organic search results. One careless tap—and the device may get infected by a stealer of passwords, cookie files, or crypto keys.
That’s why ad blocking is no longer a question of mere convenience or avoiding ad banners. It is a basic element of digital hygiene. Using ad blocking plugins, antivirus programs with anti-phishing features, and carefully checking links before following them,—all of this is critically important for the protection of personal data and informational security in general.
Hence, advertisement is more than mere marketing. It is a potential channel for invading digital life. And its blocking is a practical and necessary step toward cybersecurity.
Olga is a recognized expert in IT and information security with 19 years of experience. Among other things, she specializes in information security systems design and implementation. Her profound knowledge of IT technologies and principles of building IT infrastructure put her in the position of the Chairperson of the Committee on IT and Cyber Security of the German-Ukrainian Chamber of Industry and Commerce. Olga is also the CEO of the Ukrainian IT company Silvery LLC.
