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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

#311

Post by type0 »

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…

> (3) Intent to deceive the party by making the false representation (that is the extension's stated purpose!);

I think you are deceiving everyone that you are indeed an attorney.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#312

Post by type0 »

floweringlotus wrote: post #135
kylebenzle wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not. It is an industry term for robot initiated clicks for the purpose of profiting, that is the "FRAUD" part, just clicking random ads is not defrauding any party to the benefit of another, it just wastes resources.

Do you think it is fraud to order a pizza to be delivered to someone else's house, because you are a vegetarian and wish to destroy the business model of meat-based pizza? How about doing this to every pizza store you encounter that serves meat? You're not profiting..just wasting a business's resources by misrepresenting your identity and intentions.

It's more like you get a call that tells: you can get a free pizza as their promotion only if you open a door. When that pizza arrives, they demand money from you and try to sneak spying equipment to your home. Saying "get the hell out of my lawn" is the only right response.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#313

Post by type0 »

colept wrote: post #164
malka wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and when networks have no publishers left, what do happen to them ?

> no publishers left They become the publisher. In the grand scheme, this is a misguided effort that will further monopolize publishing.

So what will they publish then, fake news?

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#314

Post by _euvw »

type0 wrote: post #309
saghm wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Wow, that's actually kind of amazing. I wish we had that in the US...

I have such sticker but not anyone is actually following that. It helps to shout at ad mailmen sometimes when I notice them. I'm much more irritated over political junk mail.

You could call the Advertisement Code Commission. See: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/bescherming-van-con...

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#315

Post by saghm »

type0 wrote: post #309
saghm wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Wow, that's actually kind of amazing. I wish we had that in the US...

I have such sticker but not anyone is actually following that. It helps to shout at ad mailmen sometimes when I notice them. I'm much more irritated over political junk mail.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge about this, but are "ad mailmen" a specific thing in the Netherlands? In the U.S., junk ads just come in the regular mail.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#316

Post by type0 »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #212
CaptSpify wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So get out of their yard if you don't like the dog. I would if I could! But we are not in a yard. We are in a public area, where I was walking along minding my own business and the dog came up and started barking at me. I never wanted to interact with the dog in the first place. He intruded on my life.

There's no public space on the internet. Everything is somebody's yard. This is Y Combinator's yard. YouTube is Google's yard. So is the Chrome Web Store.

If it's publicly available then it's public, otherwise it's just deep web requiring authentication which is not public by any means. WWW was designed to be public, if you don't believe me you could ask Tim and "World Wide Web Foundation, which seeks to ensure the web serves humanity by establishing it as a global public good and a basic right." (http://webfoundation.org/about/sir-tim-berners-lee/)

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#317

Post by ben0x539 »

notahacker wrote: post #302
ben0x539 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fundamentally I feel like sabotage involves something like me going to someone's place and destroying their equipment like in your original analogy, also I'm probably being really sneaky about it. Naturally there's a legal and moral right to me not coming over and fucking up their shit, and probably to not be sneaky in some ways. But here, they are wasting their money because they decided that they'd pay some amount…

You could use the same "they decided to publish the URL and make it serve data... no obligation on me to behave in a way that is actually a good deal for them" line of rationalisation to justify a DDoS attempt or computer worm. That's why the relevant criterion here is is this software written for the express purpose of fucking up their shit? , to which the answer is obviously, yes and they've said as much, and ackno…

I don't think it's comparable, a DDoS attack is aimed at taking down a whole site, or otherwise making it inaccessible. Here the system keeps working as intended and the other side just has to deal with how the intentions turn out to be not very productive.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#318

Post by dragonwriter »

dsp1234 wrote: post #250
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…

You're missing a few elements. One of which is, "the injured party’s right to rely thereon"[0] (unless that's what you mean by #4 above). "A party does not have a right to rely on a representation if she is aware the representation is false, not enforceable, or not made to her." It's clearly arguable that the ad network knows that a browser is able to click on an ad in an automated fashion. Thus, they do not have a r…

Knowing that it is possible for a representation to be falsified (what you describe the ad network as knowing) is very far from knowing that it is false (the branch of the standard you appear to be appealing to argue a lack of right-to-rely.) So, I don't think the argument, as you've made it, is convincing.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#319

Post by dragonwriter »

cortesoft wrote: post #256
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…

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 t…

> making a web request is NOT a user saying they clicked an ad.

Whatever the merits of that argument might be in the general case, using an extension which expressly advertises its function to include falsifying clicks to mislead ad networks makes it hard to make the argument in that context.

Re: AdNauseam Banned from the Google Web Store

#320

Post by pdeuchler »

downandout wrote: post #303
pdeuchler wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither you nor Google has any right, morally or legally, to tell me what to do with the content that Google willingly served to my personal property (my computer). Once those electrons cross that boundry from to they lose any and all control (although of course in reality they try their damnedest to retain it). If Google wants to wholesale block all IPs that cause them a problem with click fraud that's their preroga…

Of course you can do anything you want. I'm just telling you the potential repercussions, which include destroying someone else's livelihood. If you are OK with that, fire away. But if everyone did the horrible/harsh things that they are legally entitled to do in this world, we would be in a very bad place.

If your income stream relies on millions of random internet strangers gracefully letting your code live rent free on their own personal devices then you have nobody to blame but yourself. That is assuming that sending GET requests to a public internet endpoint is a "horrible/harsh" thing to do...
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