Unclickable (2024)

 An investigative documentary on digital ad fraud.

Welcome to the murky world of digital ad fraud, organized crime's biggest source of income after drug trafficking. A former tech executive gathers a team of software developers in the basement of an undisclosed location. They set out to build a digital advertising fraud operation. Within 12 weeks, A former tech executive gathers a team of software developers in the basement of an undisclosed location. They set out to build a digital advertising fraud operation. Within 12 weeks, they defraud a large number of high-profile advertisers, including the Trump campaign and a series of pro-Biden organizations during the 2020 US Presidential election. As the operation unfolds, we follow interviews about digital advertising, the Google-Facebook duopoly, and the known and lesser-known victims of ad fraud, like Uber and street vendor Nomfundo from South Africa. We also get to address the impact of ad fraud on the internet economy and our societies - and ask: is ad tech destroying democracy?

Subtitled “An Ad Fraud Operation”, the documentary follows the former CEO of marketing technology company Upstream, Guy Krief (credited as the film’s writer), as he launches said operation in order to demonstrate how digital-advertising money ends up in scammers’ pockets with the tacit approval of Google (80% of their revenue comes from ads) and Facebook (99%), which basically have a duopoly on the market and get their cut, regardless of where the money goes or if the ads have any effect at all.