Twitter has acquired security startup Dasient, which describes itself as an anti-malware vendor for large enterprises in the financial services, media, and online sectors. Its technology will be housed within Twitter’s revenue engineering team, which suggests its primary purpose will be to identify malicious ads submitted through the company’s nascent self-serve ad platform before they go live.
In 2010, the company released a service that scanned for malicious ads – for instance the kind that forced downloads on unsuspecting users. The buyers of these ads often present themselves to publishers and ad networks as agency media buyers representing major brands. When the phony ads go live, bad guys can reach millions of victims at once on websites they ordinarily should trust.
“Over the last year, we have been very active in securing the ads and content of the some of the industry’s largest ad networks and web sites,” the company said in a blog post yesterday. “By joining Twitter, Dasient will be able to apply its technology and team to the world’s largest real-time information network.”
In addition to malicious advertisements, another possible target of Dasient’s attention are the legions of phishing attacks that routinely target users with direct messages (DMs) and @mentions. Common refrains are “Have you seen this pic someone posted of you?” and “Did you do this quiz thingy?”
Dasient has stopped accepting new customers and will shut down its business, the blog post added. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
This is Twitter’s second acquisition of the month, having previously acquired news aggregator Summify.
Related reading
Participating in the conversation: 10 ways to generate traffic WITHOUT Google
Much like the world of search and the perpetually updated algorithms of Google, the landscape of non-Google marketing sees techniques, platforms and priorities change over time. What hasn’t changed is the importance of understanding how to generate traffic without Google. Google is big, but it is not good to concentrate all your efforts into just one referrer.
Experts agree: Social media is ineffective in local link building
As anyone who’s tried to develop links to a local business will know, the link building game for local SEO is a very different beast to standard link building. To give an insight into industry best practices, local SEO tool provider BrightLocal asked 20 experts in local SEO which local link building tactics worked for them. Here's what they found.
ClickZ Buyers Guide | Bid management platform review: Kenshoo
With more than $90 billion spent on paid search in 2017, bid management platforms play a vital role in deriving maximum value from a brand's digital media budget. In this article, we take a look at Kenshoo, a leading bid management tool profiled in the new Buyers Guide from our sister site, ClickZ.
30 ways to market your online business for free
For many people and businesses, the word ‘marketing’ conjures up visions of pricey marketing strategies and excessive expenditure. However, it doesn’t have to be expensive: there are plenty of free ways to market a business. In this post, we share 30 things you can do right now to market your online business for free.
