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No More Deceptive Download Buttons

googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com

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Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#101

Post by ethbro »

derefr wrote: post #24
lexicality wrote: post #2

Perhaps now that Google has taken steps to block websites that display these ads, Google should take steps to stop accepting these ads onto their network in the first place. Most of the time when I see those DOWNLOAD/PLAY buttons, they're hosted on doubleclick.

I'm not sure they need to. Google's approach here tackles the problem of these ads being created from an economic direction: if nobody is seeing these ads, they won't make any CPM money any more, so their creators will stop running them. That's a much more sensible approach than doing what you're suggesting—trying to catch specific instances of people doing something nefarious that makes them money. That just causes…

The point was made elsewhere, but I think you stated it most eloquently. Here's my question though: does it not benefit the user to enforce some minimum of deterrence through automated policing on the ad acceptance side?

Yes, it's whack-a-mole, but so is SEO, and Google's continually tweaking that instead of giving up. Based on the current rudimentary techniques used by the advertisers (e.g. "DOWNLOAD!" buttons), even eliminating only such blatant examples would go a long way towards cleaning up deceptive ad's.

And as you've noted... it's not like Google doesn't have access to advanced CV techniques and the computational infrastructure to run them...

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#102

Post by ikeboy »

tdkl wrote: post #64
Piskvorrr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least theoretically, it should be possible to build Chrom ium with such customizations; you'll lose the benefits of the Google walled garden, but you'll gain a bit of user freedom as well (probably won't be point-and-click, alas).

Sadly Chrome sync is one of the major thing that keeps me on Chrome, it just works and syncs everything.

Chromium syncs with your Google account, but in my experience is a bit buggier, at least on Linux.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#103

Post by witty_username »

developer2 wrote: post #20
lexicality wrote: post #2

Perhaps now that Google has taken steps to block websites that display these ads, Google should take steps to stop accepting these ads onto their network in the first place. Most of the time when I see those DOWNLOAD/PLAY buttons, they're hosted on doubleclick.

I'm not at all against this move from Google - it is good sense. However, to play Devil's advocate, what are the odds this was pushed down by the MPAA/RIAA or similar? This policy more or less directly targets sites that offer free online streaming or torrent downloads of Movies/TV/Music. The sites that wind up with these deceptive ads are typically sites that provide copyrighted content to their users. Again, this i…

In my experience most free online streaming and torrent downloading websites have very small hard-to-find download buttons with a lot of fake "Download Now!" ads. So this would actually make torrenting easier.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#104

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #100
mattmanser wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a big company, I can imagine the browser guys wanting this but the ad guys saying they "can't" do this and there being a mini-war. You get the sense that sort of thing happens all the time at microsoft for example, before Ballmer left it felt like the ASP.Net team were pulling in one direction, the Visual Studio team another and the IIS team had gone rabid and were just trying to bite everyone. It happens when d…

It also happens when one department is perceived as an "expense" like IT or R&D, and starts pushing against "revenue-generating" departments like sales. Of course, all components of a properly-functioning organization are revenue-generating. An idealized business in some respects would be people giving you money with no money being spent. Everyone knows that's not how the world works, but it's awfully hard to justify…

Didn't Oracle reveal recently (maybe I'm totally misremembering this) that Google receives a shitload of revenue via Android?

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#105

Post by humbleMouse »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #100
mattmanser wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a big company, I can imagine the browser guys wanting this but the ad guys saying they "can't" do this and there being a mini-war. You get the sense that sort of thing happens all the time at microsoft for example, before Ballmer left it felt like the ASP.Net team were pulling in one direction, the Visual Studio team another and the IIS team had gone rabid and were just trying to bite everyone. It happens when d…

It also happens when one department is perceived as an "expense" like IT or R&D, and starts pushing against "revenue-generating" departments like sales. Of course, all components of a properly-functioning organization are revenue-generating. An idealized business in some respects would be people giving you money with no money being spent. Everyone knows that's not how the world works, but it's awfully hard to justify…

These are very good questions. I have wondered the same for a long time. Can anybody shed some light on this?

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#107

Post by kalkin »

Zarel wrote: post #7
lexicality wrote: post #2

Perhaps now that Google has taken steps to block websites that display these ads, Google should take steps to stop accepting these ads onto their network in the first place. Most of the time when I see those DOWNLOAD/PLAY buttons, they're hosted on doubleclick.

I remember a few years ago AdSense was showing a lot of fake Download buttons (and users would complain about it). I haven't seen them recently, though, so I hope that means they've fixed that problem.

Nope. We started experimenting with AdX ads a few days ago and immediately saw exactly these ads: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Ad-Approval-Policy...

That post is from 2013. The answer to the question in the title is apparently "not for at least three years".

I'll take Google's concern about deceptive ads seriously when they stop serving those ads themselves.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#108

Post by woobar »

Karunamon wrote: post #99
joosters wrote: post #67

So safe browsing is now blocking pages where the adverts are "often not distinguishable from the rest of the page"? IMO that covers all of Google's search result pages. Most users don't seem to realise that the top results are paid advertising...

Here's a google SERP for "insurance": http://imgur.com/VUqwyPq Are you saying the bright "ad" lozenge next to the paid results isn't explicit enough? And anyways, users don't go out of their way to avoid clicking on ads unless the ads are utter crap. Google's whole business is to make the ads relevant to the search and the user, so who's to say the ad isn't actually a relevant result?

>the bright "ad" lozenge next to the paid results isn't explicit enough

Yes, it is not explicit enough. The tiny yellow box is just a noise present on every search page. As any noise it will be ignored. Especially when everything else in these ads tries to look exactly as a valid search result.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#109

Post by kalkin »

Flimm wrote: post #35
chriswarbo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long would it take before fake "Flag this ad" buttons start appearing on ads?

The little X button in the top right corner of Google display ads already performs this function, no?

I tried to flag a deceptive "Start Download" ad of this kind by clicking on this button a few days ago (which appeared on a site I run, annoyingly). The form I was required to fill out needed me to say where the link in the ad took me. So I"m supposed to click on the link in an ad which is pretty plainly attempting to install some kind of malware, in order to be able to report it? I'm supposed to either be 100% confident there's no vulnerability in my browser, or set up some kind of VM to test with, just in order to report a single, obviously malicious ad?

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#110

Post by tdkl »

witty_username wrote: post #103
developer2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not at all against this move from Google - it is good sense. However, to play Devil's advocate, what are the odds this was pushed down by the MPAA/RIAA or similar? This policy more or less directly targets sites that offer free online streaming or torrent downloads of Movies/TV/Music. The sites that wind up with these deceptive ads are typically sites that provide copyrighted content to their users. Again, this i…

In my experience most free online streaming and torrent downloading websites have very small hard-to-find download buttons with a lot of fake "Download Now!" ads. So this would actually make torrenting easier.

By showing a full screen alert ?

There are also a lot of free file hosting sites with tons of those fake download buttons. Good luck downloading from them now.

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