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AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

adnauseam.io

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Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#251

Post by _euvw »

Analemma_ wrote: post #145
mattlevan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fraud? If a user wants to automate his browser to click all ads encountered as he surfs, that's fraud?

Yes? I'm honestly not sure how you could think otherwise. This is a clickbot just like any other.

In te Netherlands, we have stickers that we cab place on our real-life mailboxes: "No ads. No unspecified recipient." The advertisers (mailmen) are not allowed to ignore this sticker.

Am I stealing money from advertisers?

There is no such rule for online adverts. So what is a parent to do?

By blocking them and obfuscating through clicking I am protecting my own sanity, and that of my children. This is my "No/No" sticker.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#252

Post by WhiteOwlLion »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #194
otterley wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attorney here! (But not your attorney and not giving legal advice -- seek qualified counsel in your state if you need assistance.) Sending automated clicks to ads arguably meets all the elements of common-law fraud: (1) A false representation of fact (that the user clicked on the ad); (2) Knowledge of the falsity (by the user installing and using the extension); (3) Intent to deceive the party by making the false rep…

Since the packets are being sent to your computer, I consider the situation analogous to a someone coming to your home and then you replying to them with bogus information. Maybe that still fits this definition of fraud, in which case I would say I don't believe such fraud should be legally suable. I think the users property rights of their computer trumps the advertiser's complaint about fraud.

The distinction is automation versus manual process. If you manually reply with bogus information, then your illustration works. When you automate the process, there's no intervention on your part. Ad blocking is fine with me, but when you intentionally click on ads in an automated way, this becomes click fraud. There's a certain level of click fraud that is tolerated by Google, but AdNaseum takes it too far IMO.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#253

Post by neon_electro »

recursive wrote: post #232
hedora wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised people still use Chrome and not Chromium. Perhaps a few devs in your situation could improve the Chromium installation flow for Windows, etc. Google doesn't have much incentive to make it easy, but third parties (like Debian) do, and do a lot of the heavy lifting on an ongoing basis.

I can't even figure out how to install a stable version of Chromium. I only spent two minutes trying, but installing Chrome consists of one web search and one button click, so the difference is pretty obvious to me.

Here's a (macOS-specific) guide, unfortunately it still requires basic knowledge of the Terminal and a working installation of Ruby.

http://macappstore.org/chromium/

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#254

Post by hsod »

heroprotagonist wrote: post #174
Analemma_ wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? I'm honestly not sure how you could think otherwise. This is a clickbot just like any other.

It's arguable. Fraud generally requires intent to result in financial or personal gain. There's no gain here for the user. There's gain for the advertising company at the expense of the company purchasing the advertisements. But the advertising company is supposed to well-qualify their targets, right? It's on them for serving and charging for advertisements to people who don't want them or will 'click them' regardles…

I'm not a lawyer, but according to this definition the fraud perpetrator need not gain, only cause injury to the fraud victim:

"A false representation of a matter of fact—whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury."

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/fraud

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#255

Post by notahacker »

ben0x539 wrote: post #240
notahacker wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "indiscriminately bombard ad networks with the intent of sabotaging the ad network's business" is a lot closer to my DDoS example (or smashing up a store) than "if a product proves to be disappointing, exercise my statutory right to a refund and/or tell people about it". I'd also feel Google could and probably should remove browser extensions whose distinctive feature was that they automated the process of su…

I don't think you can reasonably frame clicking on too many ads as an act of sabotage. It's interfering with the metrics that some people who you don't necessarily have a business relationship use to make business decisions (like paying out money), but it's not obvious to me how you're obligated to be particularly cooperative in their gathering of the metrics. The system continues to work as intended, you're just not…

> I don't think you can reasonably frame clicking on too many ads as an act of sabotage. It's interfering with the metrics that some people who you don't necessarily have a business relationship use to make business decisions (like paying out money), but it's not obvious to me how you're obligated to be particularly cooperative in their gathering of the metrics. The system continues to work as intended, you're just not supplying it with the data its creators would ideally hope to receive. That also seems to contrast it with a DoS attack.

Blocking an ad/tracker is being "not particularly cooperative", and fulfils the goal of not seeing ads or being tracked pretty well. The entire point of modifying an existing ad blocker to click everything, as stated by the creators is to disrupt the metrics to the point where the system doesn't continue to work as intended, and cost the indiscriminately clicked ad-purchasers an average of $1.58 per wasted PPC click, as they've taken the effort to estimate (see their FAQ).

I can't see how anyone can honestly argue that a tool whose creators openly state that its purpose is to indiscriminately "obstruct" and "resist" an industry to force it to change its business model by rendering its analytics worthless and wasting PPCers budgets isn't sabotage, irrespective of whether they agree with the desirability of the end goal.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#256

Post by cortesoft »

otterley wrote: post #173
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fraud is a poor word choice, because it is a legal term. There must be a better word out there.

Attorney here! (But not your attorney and not giving legal advice -- seek qualified counsel in your state if you need assistance.) Sending automated clicks to ads arguably meets all the elements of common-law fraud: (1) A false representation of fact (that the user clicked on the ad); (2) Knowledge of the falsity (by the user installing and using the extension); (3) Intent to deceive the party by making the false rep…

As far as (1).... making a web request is NOT a user saying they clicked an ad. That is an inference that the website owner is making, not a statement the user is making. The user never agreed to that.

This would be like if you are a dairy farmer and you notice people who buy cookies usually buy milk, so to make things simple you make an agreement to pay a store 25 cents for every cookie they sell (because you want to incentivize them to sell more cookies and therefore more milk). You couldn't then accuse a customer of fraud when they buy cookies but not milk. They never agreed to always buy milk when they buy cookies, that was just an assumption you made.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#257

Post by jmcdiesel »

ebbv wrote: post #38
jmcdiesel wrote: post #31

What point did we begin to feel entitled to do whatever we want in someone else's software? If someone wants to kick you out of there house for no reason, you leave their house. You're not paying to be there, you're not paying to publish there... you have no intrinsic "right" to be there... you were there as a privilege - when it disappears, for whatever reason, there is no reason other than a false sense of entitlem…

> there is no reason other than a false sense of entitlement to whine about it So the rest of us shouldn't be aware of what Google is doing and base our choice of browser on that? I agree Google, Apple, etc. are absolutely entitled to kick people from their stores for whatever reason they want. But, we should also be informed of this especially when it seems to be based on self interest rather than protecting their u…

The difference comes in the tone...

When the tone is more accusatory than informative, it invites plenty of criticism...

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#258

Post by joelwilliamson »

ajross wrote: post #202
claudius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. That's actually not true. There's some case law about that sort of thing (the Microsoft antitrust case being the most famous), but the basis for anti trust law has always been about price efficiency, not protection of competition for…

The case against Standard Oil was pretty explicitly because of anticompetitive behaviour, not price inefficiency.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#259

Post by hsod »

pklausler wrote: post #241
otterley wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attorney here! (But not your attorney and not giving legal advice -- seek qualified counsel in your state if you need assistance.) Sending automated clicks to ads arguably meets all the elements of common-law fraud: (1) A false representation of fact (that the user clicked on the ad); (2) Knowledge of the falsity (by the user installing and using the extension); (3) Intent to deceive the party by making the false rep…

When I manually click an ad for a political candidate or party that I despise, am I committing fraud? (Not saying that I do that, of course. Entirely hypothetical.)

Seems like point 1 would not be satisfied, because you are actually clicking the ad. I suppose someone could argue that you're still deceiving them about your intent but it seems like quite a stretch.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#260

Post by godshatter »

wvenable wrote: post #221
floweringlotus wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, how about an example with no orders? Let's say you think the police state is evil, and you wish to destroy it by wasting its resources. Is making automated empty 911 calls justified? Just because you intend to use the 911 hotline as an emergency resource surely shouldn't impede my right as a phone owner from calling it in the manner you intended. It's my god-given right as a phonebook owner to call whatever…

This analogy is still a stretch. Both are examples of DDOS which prevents legitimate requests from going through. This is more the equivalent of replying to every piece of physical junk mail that you get using their provided self-stamped return envelopes. I think you'd be hard to pressed to argue that, while being a jerk move, you're still aren't entitled to do it.

Used to actually do this back in the day. I would send them back their offer with something like "I regret to inform you that I am not interested in your offer. Have a nice day." on the top page. I figured that going out of my way to let them know that they shouldn't expect a sale from me was simply being polite. I used their handy return envelope to send it back to them.

There were stories of people who would attach their return envelopes to heavy objects and try to send those back to them.

Maybe some day advertisers will come to understand that if their ads affect me negatively, then I will do my best to make it unprofitable for them to present them to me.

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