111–120 of 344 posts
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Were there really enough people using this to cause such an impact?
I don't know, but I certainly wouldn't want to be a favorite site of even one AdNauseum user. Adsense is very sensitive to stuff like this, especially in higher CPC niches.
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How can the Adsense distinguish whether it is AdNauseum clicking or the human clicking?
They probably can't, since it's an extension and thus uses the user's browser, IP, cookies etc (Adsense does use mouse tracking and other techniques that will likely flag these clicks as suspect, requiring additional analysis). Therein lies the problem. It appears to them as if someone is going and clicking on every ad, or is using an automated headless browser to click on ads. That can easily get you banned. Google…
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Not that I'm really surprised by Google's action, but "fraud" is a pretty strong word for what's happening, and pretty disingenuous IMO. No one's pretending to be anyone they're not.
Click fraud is a standard industry term for robot initiated clicks, which this is a case of. What this extension generates are certainly not legitimate clicks form interested users, or even unintentional clicks that happen due to various reasons (some HN readers like to blame them on dark patterns, but they're really just of a consequence of the fact that ad tech is just not that great in general).
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I can't name a single online service that is supported by ads and that I couldn't live without. >not all ads are inherently evil. All advertising is manipulation. Advertisers are bad and should feel bad.
Serious question, but how do you feel about persuasion? Is all persuasion inherently manipulative, or are there some types of persuasion/marketing that don't cross the line and become "manipulation"?
One dimension of that distinction is intent - are you trying to persuade me having my best interests in mind (including not applying the technique if you're not sure about the consequences)? Then I'll probably be fine with it, and consider it an act of friendship. Are you trying to exploit me by convincing me to make self-harming decisions? I'd consider this an act of malice. An attack.
Advertising of all kinds would be fine if it performed just the information function - by honestly trying to paint the whole picture and give all relevant information to enable customers to make a rational choice. As it is today, it's squarely in the malicious, abusive zone.
Can someone explain what the point of silently clicking the ads is? Why not just block them? Does clicking the ads somehow aid in blocking or is it a way of fighting back against perceived abuses by advertisers?
The idea is to mess with advertisers' metrics. If people using ad blockers are peaceful protesters, AdNauseam is trying to riot.
AdNauseum doesn't hurt advertising networks, it hurts publishers. When they get banned for click fraud, the network keeps the money.
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People should still be giving Google shit for decisions like that, even if they're not surprised.
Why does Google deserve the shit for stopping people from taking money from them? I wouldn't think to give a department store shit for pressing charges against someone who smashed up a bunch of merchandise, whether or not the act was politically motivated.
At the risk of downvotes: Is anyone really surprised? AdNauseam is silently clicking ads. This directly costs Google money . Google happens to control the extension web store for their own browser. Removing it from the store really isn't that bad. Uninstalling it from existing browsers as malware? A little more malicious, but I would still consider it self defense. There is even a method to install it directly[1] whi…
People should still be giving Google shit for decisions like that, even if they're not surprised.
"Company which makes its money from advertising bans automated click fraud extension from being used in its browser."
Not that I'm really surprised by Google's action, but "fraud" is a pretty strong word for what's happening, and pretty disingenuous IMO. No one's pretending to be anyone they're not.
The practice of ... clicking on an advertisement hosted on a website with the intention of ... draining revenue from the advertiser
Elsewhere on the same page they've even gone to the extent of explaining how they calculate the average revenue they think each simulated click drains from the entities they wish to "resist"
At the risk of downvotes: Is anyone really surprised? AdNauseam is silently clicking ads. This directly costs Google money . Google happens to control the extension web store for their own browser. Removing it from the store really isn't that bad. Uninstalling it from existing browsers as malware? A little more malicious, but I would still consider it self defense. There is even a method to install it directly[1] whi…
> But the whole attitude that this is some sort of tyrannical thing is a little over the top. This is the exact sort of thing anti-monopoly laws are intended to work against: that a major market force in one market uses that power to intrude or support itself in another market. Since Google Chrome undoubtedly has a sufficiently large market share that this may be a concern and the removal of this extension certainly…