South Africa, Oct. 9 -- Most older houses have a damp patch somewhere. A faint stain on the bedroom wall, a musty smell every winter. The owners know what it means: water is seeping in behind the plaster, slowly and out of sight. And most of them do the same thing: they paint over the stain, because opening the wall is expensive and messy, and might reveal something worse.

That is how many South African advertisers treat digital ad fraud in 2026. Ask a marketing team whether some of their spend reaches bots, and they will readily agree. Ask for their own figure, and the conversation usually stalls. They acknowledge the problem in general but ignore it in practice because finding it is inconvenient and fixing it seems impossible. Meanwhil...