In a past life, Michael Tiffany fought cyber crime for financial institutions. Then he notice the same techniques were being used to defraud the advertising industry.

The problem was big enough to draw Mr. Tiffany into the battle against traffic fraud full-time and, in 2013, he started a company called White Ops aimed at detecting and eliminating fraudulent ad campaigns. The company's slogan says it all: "Bots are bad for business; we're bad for bots."

In an interview with Ad Age, Mr. Tiffany said traffic fraud can be found not only on smaller sites serving as shells to game ad exchanges, but on the domains of premium publishers as well.

"What we do know is that it's not just a problem hiding out in the long tail, it's not just a problem of bogus websites," he said. "Bots have infiltrated traffic systems across the ecosystem and end up at some premium, name brand publishers."

In the video interview below -- filmed at the IAB's Annual Leadership Meeting -- Mr. Tiffany discusses the premium publisher issue and identifies those who benefit from traffic fraud: