What is a phone farm?
A phone farm (also known as device farm and click farm) is a network where cybercriminals exploit a mobile incentive program by using multiple phones to perform the same actions repeatedly. For example, increasing ad views, clicks, or installs to get higher incentives, leading to misattributions and increasing marketing spends.
Phone farming usually involves exploiting paid-to-watch apps or other incentive-based programs over dozens of phones in order to increase the total amount earned.
The term can also be applied to operations that orchestrate dozens or even hundreds of phones to create a certain outcome such as improving the ratings of a restaurant in Yelp or bumping up ASO in app stores via five-star reviews.
Companies constantly make updates to their platforms in order to fight with phone farming, but it is almost impossible to prevent people from exploiting such services for their own benefit.