Methods and apparatus to prevent illicit proxy communications from affecting a monitoring result

An apparatus to prevent illicit network communications from affecting a monitoring result of an audience measurement entity, the apparatus comprising:

• a hardware logic circuit;
• a proxy log filterer to access, at the audience measurement entity, a log of communications from a proxy, the proxy to transmit a communication between a requesting device and a media provider;
• a heartbeat detector to identify a subnet within the log of communications as having a first address that originated an illicit network communication if the log of communications does not include at least one signature of a heartbeat message having a second address within the subnet, the heartbeat message identified by at least one of (1) comparing a user agent field of a record associated with the heartbeat message to user agent fields indicative of the record originating from a mobile device or (2) comparing a uniform resource locator field of the record to uniform resource locator fields indicative of the record originating from a mobile device, the heartbeat message associated with communication between the mobile device and a software provider, the illicit network communication indicating the record originated from a non-mobile device;
• and
• a blacklist generator to generate a blacklist of subnets not to be serviced by the proxy, the blacklist including the subnet when the subnet is identified as having originated the illicit network communication, the blacklist generator to provide the blacklist to the proxy, the blacklist to prevent a subnet that originated the illicit network communication from affecting the monitoring result of the audience measurement entity, wherein at least one of the proxy log filterer, the heartbeat detector, or the blacklist generator is implemented via the hardware logic circuit.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed, cause a central facility of an audience measurement entity to at least:

• access, at the central facility, a log of communications from a proxy, the proxy to transmit a communication between a requesting device and a media provider;
• identify a subnet represented in the log of communications;
• identify the subnet as having a first address that originated an illicit network communication if the log of communications does not include at least one signature of a heartbeat message having a second address within the subnet, the heartbeat message identified by at least one of (1) comparing a user agent field of a record associated with the heartbeat message to user agent fields indicative of the record originating from a mobile device or (2) comparing a uniform resource locator field of the record to uniform resource locator fields indicative of the record originating from a mobile device, the heartbeat message associated with communication between the mobile device and a software provider, the illicit network communication indicating the record originated from a non-mobile device;
• generate a blacklist of subnets not to be serviced by the proxy, the blacklist including the subnet when the subnet is identified as having originated the illicit network communication;
• and
• provide the blacklist to the proxy, the blacklist to prevent a subnet that originated the illicit network communication from affecting a monitoring result of the audience measurement entity.