No More Deceptive Download Buttons • Hacker News Board

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#121

Post by joosters » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

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?

No, it's not good enough. It's a bizarre colour that is too similar to the white that they use to write 'Ad' in it. A website with white-on-yellow text would be painful to read.

Also, they don't even bother putting it next to each ad. On the right hand side, there's just one 'Ads' at the top and then everything underneath is an unlabelled paid ad. Why?

Google ads started out quite distinct, but they have gradually made them blend in. They used to have a stand-out background colour, then they had a very pale background, and now there is no obvious 'advert box' at all. Google know that many people are misled into clicking on the adverts, but they don't care because of the $$

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#122

Post by witty_username » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

tdkl wrote: post #110

witty_username wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean it makes displaying "Download Now!" banners less effective. You can bypass the alert; Chrome puts the alert if I understood.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#123

Post by infogulch » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

torgoguys wrote: post #118

protomyth wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised of the negativity towards this action Its pretty basic. A lot of people are not happy that Google is serving these ads that they are telling you they will stop at the browser-level with a warning that makes the site owner look guilty. They want Google's Ad network to stop serving the ads in the first place.

Thanks for that. So can anyone point me to an ad served by Google that is as bad as the examples in the blog post? I thought Google had previously cracked down on such ads from the serving side too, although less deceptive ones were still allowed, no? I'm happy to be better informed!

getpaint.net is mentioned elsewhere itt. Perhaps not quite as bad, but still at least mildly deceptive.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#124

Post by dfar1 » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:18 PM UTC

It's about time google crack down on these ads. The download button is just one of the many tactics. Any ads that show a guy with biceps three times the size of his head should also be banned. Yahoo is infested with these "sponsored" ads, and pretty much any other site that lives on ads revenue only.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#125

Post by torgoguys » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:18 PM UTC

infogulch wrote: post #123

torgoguys wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for that. So can anyone point me to an ad served by Google that is as bad as the examples in the blog post? I thought Google had previously cracked down on such ads from the serving side too, although less deceptive ones were still allowed, no? I'm happy to be better informed!

getpaint.net is mentioned elsewhere itt. Perhaps not quite as bad, but still at least mildly deceptive.

Gotcha. Yeah, I see one there. Big green button with a down arrow saying "GET IT NOW" lots of whitespace below and then a smallish rewaterpressure logo. Because of the whitespace, the button very much looked associated with the paint.net download text above, not with the rewaterpressure logo below.

I also received the less bad (but still bad) text-based "start download now" one the same page. You convinced me. Editing my parent post above.

EDIT: for those curious, here's what the page looked like on the page load mentioned above: http://imgur.com/SisOXNT

They were all Google served ads.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#126

Post by criddell » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

blantonl wrote: post #75

whyleyc wrote: post #9

This is a joke right ? We run Adsense display ads on our site and have to spend significant time every day reviewing and blocking new ads which try to use these deceptive practices. Since Google clearly has the tech to detect this they should be implementing it at source on the advertisers (malvertisers). Instead they are pushing this down to the publishers and hitting them with penalties. It's a clever ploy in some…

Spot On. I run an online media streaming site for public safety communications, and we've noticed that Adsense advertisers often use these exact social engineering techniques to display download/play links that end up having customers install crappy spyware infested "media players" and other software. My jaw dropped when I saw this blog post.

I'm semi-serious here, but if you noticed that you are serving ads that are harming your users, why would you continue to use ad-sense? Why not switch to a different ad network and let Google know why you switched?

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#127

Post by fixermark » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:39 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #126

blantonl wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot On. I run an online media streaming site for public safety communications, and we've noticed that Adsense advertisers often use these exact social engineering techniques to display download/play links that end up having customers install crappy spyware infested "media players" and other software. My jaw dropped when I saw this blog post.

I'm semi-serious here, but if you noticed that you are serving ads that are harming your users, why would you continue to use ad-sense? Why not switch to a different ad network and let Google know why you switched?

Based on other comments in this thread: does such an ad network exist?

If all your options are terrible, you might as well use the terrible option with the largest ROI, right?

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#128

Post by drhayes9 » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #127

criddell wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm semi-serious here, but if you noticed that you are serving ads that are harming your users, why would you continue to use ad-sense? Why not switch to a different ad network and let Google know why you switched?

Based on other comments in this thread: does such an ad network exist? If all your options are terrible, you might as well use the terrible option with the largest ROI, right?

> might as well use the terrible option with the highest ROI, right?

No, thanks. Does The Deck serve spammy, malicious ads? I know they're tightly targeted at the techy/designy crowd, but they're also a great example of high ROI ads that aren't terrible.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#129

Post by cm2187 » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

whyleyc wrote: post #9

This is a joke right ? We run Adsense display ads on our site and have to spend significant time every day reviewing and blocking new ads which try to use these deceptive practices. Since Google clearly has the tech to detect this they should be implementing it at source on the advertisers (malvertisers). Instead they are pushing this down to the publishers and hitting them with penalties. It's a clever ploy in some…

Most websites seem not to care about the content they deliver to their visitors. When I visit xyz.com, it is xyz.com's job to ensure that it doesn't deliver to me malicious content. I have zero sympathy for xyz.com telling me that it's not their problem, they serve 3rd party ads and if these ads are malicious it's the fault of these advertisers not their.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#130

Post by tveita » Thu, Feb 04, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

torgoguys wrote: post #118

protomyth wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised of the negativity towards this action Its pretty basic. A lot of people are not happy that Google is serving these ads that they are telling you they will stop at the browser-level with a warning that makes the site owner look guilty. They want Google's Ad network to stop serving the ads in the first place.

Thanks for that. So can anyone point me to an ad served by Google that is as bad as the examples in the blog post? I thought Google had previously cracked down on such ads from the serving side too, although less deceptive ones were still allowed, no? I'm happy to be better informed!

I got served a "Click here to update your Windows drivers" ad on Youtube.

I clicked around for a while but couldn't find a way to report it.