Geo Pulse #53 — Geo-fraud filtering: layered tools, what each catches

Geo Pulse #53 — Geo-fraud filtering: layered tools, what each catches
This week: one filter never covers all the ways GEO traffic gets faked.

— ASN / hosting-IP blocklists (IP2Proxy, ipinfo privacy flags) → catch datacenter and VPN traffic pretending to be in-country residential. First layer, cheap, high value.
— Timezone vs IP-country mismatch → a free, devastatingly effective signal: device says UTC+0, IP says Brazil, that's a proxy. Most setups never check it.
— Language-header vs GEO mismatch → Accept-Language: ru on a 'US' click is a flag worth scoring, not blocking outright.
— Click-to-conversion behavioral (FraudScore, Anura) → the heavy layer for bot vs human; reserve for when the cheap signals aren't enough.

Lesson: stack the free mismatch checks before paying for a behavioral tool — they catch most low-effort geo-spoofing.

Credit: the anti-fraud signal lists from Anura's blog and the IAB's invalid-traffic guidance.