SIVT fraud detection: What are falsified viewable impression decisions?

Pixalate is an MRC-accredited company for the detection and filtration of Sophisticated Invalid Traffic ("SIVT") desktop and mobile web impressions.

According to the Media Rating Council’s (MRC) standards for Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Guidelines, there are two types of invalid traffic:

• GIVT (General Invalid Traffic)
• SIVT (Sophisticated Invalid Traffic)

“Falsified viewable impression decisions” is one example of SIVT.

What are “falsified viewable impression decisions” in the MRC definition of SIVT?

According to the MRC, falsified viewable impression decisions are considered SIVT.

Simply put, out-of-view ads that fake compliance to the MRC standards for viewability are considered falsified viewable impressions.

An ad is considered viewable if at least 50% of its pixels are in-view for at least one continuous second. Ads that are measured as viewable are commonly worth more to advertisers, and are therefore commonly sought out.

MRC-accredited ad fraud detection and prevention companies must be able to identify falsified viewable impression decisions.

What are some other examples of SIVT?

Falsified viewable impression decisions is just one example of Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT) as defined by the MRC. To learn about some of the other examples of SIVT, click on any of the examples below:

•      Differentiating human and IVT traffic when originating from the same or similar source     
•      Bots and spiders or other crawlers masquerading as legitimate users
•      Hijacked devices, user sessions, ad tags, and ad creative
•      Hidden/stacked/covered or otherwise intentionally obfuscated ad serving
•      Invalid proxy traffic
•      Adware and malware
•      Incentivized manipulation of measurements
  
•      Falsely represented sites
•      Cookie stuffing, recycling, or harvesting
•      Manipulation or falsification of location data