Unclickable
Unclickable
7.1
Welcome to the murky world of digital ad fraud, organized crime’s biggest source of income after drug trafficking. A former industry executive pulls the curtain to expose how it’s done, who the victims are, and what role Google and Facebook play in the game.
Kevin Ward reviewedJuly 1, 2025
Unclickable lifts the veil on how disturbingly easy it is to game the online ad ecosystem. A team creates fake news sites using AI-generated content, botnets for fake traffic, and cashes in via programmatic ads. It’s accessible, occasionally fascinating, and makes a strong case that the system is wide open for exploitation.
But its focus on fake political news as just a money-making scheme feels a little reductive—downplaying the ideological motives that often drive disinformation. Still, it’s a solid primer on a broken system where engagement is fake, and profit is real.