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No More Deceptive Download Buttons

googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com

231–240 of 263 posts

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they implement detection, and remove these ads. The scummy advertisers then permutate their ads until they get past the detection and the game continues. We're getting pretty good at image classification, but I don't think that extends to maliciously crafted inputs.

That or they manually verify each ad submission. If that violates their business model of high-volume low-value automated processes (and it obviously does) then you have to take account of that when decide how you view company. Automation and the inability to verify at the scale that they operate doesn't somehow absolve them.

Yeah, basically Google is looking for any way to avoid actually reviewing the ads they broadcast. Probably because advertising becomes drastically less profitable for them if they do. I feel when this sort of conflict of interest is occurring, where it's profitable for Google to continue shipping malware to users, they should be held legally accountable for their failure to police what they distribute.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#233

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?

It's absolutely not enough. After watching tons of seniors use computers (and having to degunk them), it seems Google's ads in search are the primary malware distribution method on the Internet. Phishing sites are always atop searches for banks, malware links are always atop searches for drivers and software, and normal users see that top ad as the 'first result'.

Users placed their trust in Google, and Google betrayed them.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#234
post #53
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…

Firstly, this will work on ad networks other than Google, so it''s more broad reaching than anything they could do just within AdSense. This is good. Secondly, and arguably more importantly, the way to stop these adverts is for them to cost the advertiser (in either money or time) without giving them the reward of revenue. If the ads stop working then people won't have a reason to make them. By stopping the ads in Ad…

It's a good move, but it seems unlikely that they going to block a site that's only using AdSense to serve up deceptive ads. Where is the announcement that adsense/adwords will detect those ads as well?

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#235

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?

Somewhat off topic... but also, it states 1,010,000,000 results on the first page of this query but if I go to the last page, it comes down to 412 results... I can't believe that there is only 412 insurance related pages on the whole Internet... https://www.google.com/search?q=insurance&num=100&safe=off&s...

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#236
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…

What you are describing is already against Google's policies for advertisers, and they do implement it in a very thorough review process for all ads: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6020955

Do you report the deceptive ads to Google? https://support.google.com/adsense/troubleshooter/1190500?hl...

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#237
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…

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…

Nope. The ads team at Google has been actively working against these types of ads for years. No one at Google wants to serve bad ads.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#238
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"more broad reaching than anything they could do just within AdSense" ... as long as you don't care about browsers which don't run Google's Safe Browsing service. You know another way to stop these ads? Make available an advertising network which doesn't serve them. Website owners who don't want to install malware on their users' computers - which is probably most of us - would prefer that network to the others. As-i…

I've actually built an advertising network[1] that is not focused on serving display ads, but linking to content directly in images. Video demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GfKBvs53Ss The thought is that if "advertising" is actually a feature of a website, then it solves the problem of users trying to avoid being shown ads. If you could hover your mouse over an object on any image on the internet and be taken di…

This is the first ad platform I've seen that is innovative in a good way, instead of the usual remarketing/tracking/native/data whatever bullshit. Seriously, awesome idea and execution. Have you gotten any press for this?

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#239
post #51

As I write this, the ranking of the comments here is... strange. Those who see this as being yet another way of Google using their power to manipulate what people see on the Internet are being heavily downvoted, while those agreeing with the practice are not? That doesn't feel like HN to me. I'm in the former group. This mollycoddling is just going to lead to more users who can't decide for themselves whether somethi…

You can't seriously be saying that people potentially running into malware because they couldn't figure out with download button was the real one is reasonable?

You can't seriously be saying that not being able to figure out which download button is the right one is reasonable? With experience, it's extremely easy to find the real one.

- It's usually smaller and less prominent than the fake ones.

- Mousing over it doesn't show a huge long URL to some external domain that sounds ad-like.

Using adblock probably gets rid of a lot of the fake ones too, but the general principle here is if it looks too good/easy to be true, it probably is. The buttons that seem really enticing are the ones you don't want to click, and it's that odd, not-very-attractive one that you want.

Re: No More Deceptive Download Buttons

#240
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…

"It's a clever ploy..."

Not really all that clever. Same old story. They take users for fools. Maybe users will stay dumb re: ads, but then maybe not. It's amusing to watch the companies that must jam the ads into your pages to make money claiming they can "make the internet faster" (a previous ploy) or "safer" for users. These companies are part of the problem, not the solution. Unless they find a new "business model". But why bother when this one - being a middleman to people's use of the internet, selling ads and jamming them into every page they can - works so well?

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