Google buys firm to stem online fraud

New York - Google said on Friday it was buying the British-based startup spider.io for its technology to weed out fraud in online advertising.

"Advertising helps fund the digital world we love today... but this vibrant ecosystem only flourishes if marketers can buy media online with the confidence that their ads are reaching real people, that results they see are based on actual interest," said Neal Mohan at Google's DoubleClick unit which develops targeted ads.

With the new acquisition, Mohan said, "our immediate priority is to include their fraud detection technology in our video and display ads products, where they will complement our existing efforts."

He added that "by including spider.io's fraud-fighting expertise in our products, we can scale our efforts to weed out bad actors and improve the entire digital ecosystem."

The move helps Google combat the practice of click fraud, where criminals use automatic programmes to boost the number of clicks on an online ad to boost revenues.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.