Considering FB insistence on "real name" this is priceless.
Fraudulent Advertising on Facebook
41–50 of 100 posts
Re: Fraudulent Advertising on Facebook
#42Why isn't Facebook doing domain verification for the display domain? There are plenty of ways (email to well-known account, DNS records, etc.) to verify domain ownership. Google is doing that and I'm sure plenty people at Facebook are familiar with the concept.
From a legal perspective, I wonder if the legitimate sites can sue Facebook over that, or if there's a case for class action on behalf of users.
In any case, I don't buy any arguments that claim this is intentional to help actual advertisers or an oversight. From a security standpoint this is a spoofing tool and without any kind of validation or verification it should be clear what this tool is being used for. Facebook's in the business of collecting and analyzing data, and I'm sure they know very well that it's being misused.
Re: Fraudulent Advertising on Facebook
#43These ads are appearing on more reputable news sites, but for things like gambling. The story line is almost always about a guy who is left by his woman and he gets revenge by winning big. There are a list of "Facebook" comments, and they make sure a few of them state that it's a scam, which makes it look more legit.
Re: Fraudulent Advertising on Facebook
#44I discovered something quite similar to this several months ago and tried to submit it as a bug report. One can easily make the display URL of any shared post be anything they choose (screenshot of spoofed whitehouse.gov link [1] and techcrunch.com link [2]), while the link actually goes to any site the user wants. I was told, quite simply, that it wasn't a bug. No one seems to care about the implications of this.
Re: Fraudulent Advertising on Facebook
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the actual URL is often some metrics or ad-billing service which is supposed to redirect to the target. This is quite common on Google as well as on Facebook.
Then the possible check would be simply for FB to follow the original link and see if it matches the display link after the redirect from the tracker But of course they won't do that.
then you'd send facebook's checker to the real url, and then redirect everyone else
Re: Fraudulent Advertising on Facebook
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the actual URL is often some metrics or ad-billing service which is supposed to redirect to the target. This is quite common on Google as well as on Facebook.
Then the possible check would be simply for FB to follow the original link and see if it matches the display link after the redirect from the tracker But of course they won't do that.
That's also something that would be relatively easy to game as well.
Re: Fraudulent Advertising on Facebook
#47"If you tried this in Google AdWords, you would be laughed right out of your account."
Feel the burn Facebook.
Re: Fraudulent Advertising on Facebook
#48I surprised that so far in the comments, no one has brought up the R word. "Revenue" How much revenue is fb getting for allowing this? Their income has suddenly jumped dramatically in the last few years. 26K Clicks is pretty good income imho.
Re: Fraudulent Advertising on Facebook
#49Here's another "bug" I noticed today: if your browser window is "too narrow", for example because you're using that widescreen to have two windows open at once, you get a horizontal scrollbar and ads display like this:
http://chunk.io/f/d1c9168e2f0c41edb8ea4bf3d29ddadc.png
scroll to the right and you get this:
http://chunk.io/f/f6020ad14aa84a6c9a3415291cfbb920.png
Yes, someone's being charged for an ad where even if I scroll I can only see a few pixels on the left. If I make the window a bit narrower I don't see it at all, but it's presumably still an "impression".
Re: Fraudulent Advertising on Facebook
#50I discovered something quite similar to this several months ago and tried to submit it as a bug report. One can easily make the display URL of any shared post be anything they choose (screenshot of spoofed whitehouse.gov link [1] and techcrunch.com link [2]), while the link actually goes to any site the user wants. I was told, quite simply, that it wasn't a bug. No one seems to care about the implications of this. [1…
Well no, they do care about the implications. The implication being that by cutting out fraudulent but paying users, they will have fewer paying users.
Advertisers and the networks that serve them will never be on the consumer's side. If a consumer wanted to do what an advertiser wanted, the advertiser would be out of work. It's all subversion.