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We’re dropping Google Ads

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Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#371

Post by dublinben »

glenneroo wrote: post #335
Crito wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid, my dad used to rip the advertisements out of magazines as soon as they came in the mail. That's a practice I've carried on, despite getting far few magazines these days... My family also used to mute the advertisements on TV, though I don't think any of us still watch it. So when I see people claiming that adblockers are immoral, it always gives me a good chuckle. Is ripping the ads out of a magazin…

> Is the mute button on my remote a ethnical crime against poor hapless television companies? Which reminds me, TV/cable/et al. related services already cost money, yet they still serve advertisements. Isn't this a form of double-dipping? Shouldn't they be paying (or giving a discount) to watch advertisements?

The cost of broadcast and cable networks already includes a discount that takes the advertising into account. Ad-free networks (HBO, Showtime, etc.) otherwise known as "pay television" are $15/mo each, since all revenue must come directly from subscribers.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#374

Post by victorhooi »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #369
halflings wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have gone so far as to suggest a significant portion of Google's revenue is likely serving malicious content, which leaves them very little incentive to do anything about it. That's quite a serious accusation :). One that is not substantiated by the facts: https://blog.google/topics/ads/how-we-fought-bad-ads-sites-a...

A Google blog post is not "the facts". A Google blog post is, in fact, an ad for Google. Your sources should be independent, and independently verifiable. What Google says they do is useless, because it cannot be verified.

Do you have anything specific that would refute anything in the report? Simply mounting an ad-hominem attack doesn't add anything to the discussion.

It's like somebody saying "Tesla cars suck - they explode". And Elon Musk comes out and says, "No they don't, here's the testing/validation we did". And you say "Oh but...but....you work for Tesla. It must be lies!"

If there's factual inaccuracies - of course, that's a different story. But you seem to be simply saying, "They must be lying, because that suits my narrative, so I'm not going to bother trying to refute it".

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#375

Post by SantiagoDraco »

halflings wrote: post #366
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have gone so far as to suggest a significant portion of Google's revenue is likely serving malicious content, which leaves them very little incentive to do anything about it. Almost every senior citizen I've ever had clean up malware for got it from a malicious search ad. And the tech support scams they continue to list take advantage of tons of people as well. I've pointed out before that Google happily lists phon…

> I have gone so far as to suggest a significant portion of Google's revenue is likely serving malicious content, which leaves them very little incentive to do anything about it. That's quite a serious accusation :). One that is not substantiated by the facts: https://blog.google/topics/ads/how-we-fought-bad-ads-sites-a...

Conspiracy theorists never let facts stand in the way of a good conspiracy.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#376

Post by hawski »

iDemonix wrote: post #367
hawski wrote: post #320

I had a bit silly idea about financing of web services. Create beautiful, fast and very lean web serivce - "easy" part. It should be very lean - every page at most few hundred kB. Serve the website with useless bytes at front. Example: page weights 100kB - add 500kB of garbage to it at front. You can place them in html or js comment. You can add useless EXIF data to jpegs. You could place small number in every HTTP h…

This seems like a very weird solution to a problem that doesn't really warrant it. Can you let me know which sites you own so I know not to visit them...

Do you prefer ads? The original useless bytes.

You're safe. I don't own any site you would want to visit.

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#377

Post by victorhooi »

arthurfm wrote: post #334
chrisan wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: has google ads been responsible for virus/malware in the past? I thought they were, while still annoying, safe from serving such content. So much that if they detect your site has malware they prevent it from serving their ads https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1308246?hl=e... As such I went along with allowing google ads since it seemed like a good middle ground between not wanting to…

> has google ads been responsible for virus/malware in the past? Yes. http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/y...

I read the article - it's an interesting read.

The claim is that a YouTube ad was serving malware.

However, upon reading the article, it seems that:

1. Somebody purchased legitimate YouTube ad space. 2. They then redirected that traffic twice through two other legitimate ad networks. 3. They then broke into a Polish government website, and funnelled the traffic there, to serve up malware.

That certainly doesn't seem to be a case of Google/YouTube serving up malware - if anything, these attacks went to a lot of trouble to obscure from YouTube what they were doing, precisely so they wouldn't get shut-down (presumably by either YouTube, or the two other ad networks they were piggy-backing on).

You could argue, they should have caught them earlier - but isn't that a bit like blaming your email provider that you got a spam/malware email - when the actual party to blame is the person sending you aforesaid spam/malware?

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#378

Post by redm »

andrepd wrote: post #368
jasonkostempski wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trackers are malware. Google ads are the widest spread virus on the planet.

I don't know why you're being downvoted, teachers fit in the definition of malware.

"Malware, short for malicious software, is any software used to disrupt computer or mobile operations, gather sensitive information, gain access to private computer systems, or display unwanted advertising. Before the term malware was coined by Yisrael Radai in 1990, malicious software was referred to as computer viruses." [1] [2]

I don't think most people would consider Google's purposeful display ads, which site owners choose to put there and customers expect to see, 'Malware.' I think Adware/Advertising Malware refers to software that shows unexpected ads, such as after you leave the site, or installing software on your computer that randomly shows ads.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware

[2] https://books.google.com/books?id=jOsFlLPg1KkC&pg=PA10

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#379

Post by coldpie »

matt4077 wrote: post #191
mitchty wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this isn't an unwritten agreement that this member of society is even aware of so... so much for that aspect of society. Or as my grandfather used to say, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other, one of them will fill up faster. That unwritten agreement is worth everything its written on. What exactly am I taking by not viewing ads? I view it the opposite, ads take away my attention and time and worst of a…

The ethical problem isn't ethical, but existential. If everyone acted on only their immediate self-interest, ad-supported business models would fold. Then, we already have all lost out, because people currently obviously prefer ads to paywalls. Even if you decide to pay for a few sources of information, you will never again have access to the breath of journalism you have now. If paywalls don't catch on, it's game ov…

> Because even if my contribution of a vote every four years seems quite small,

Every year! There are elections every year! Vote every year!

Re: We’re dropping Google Ads

#380

Post by phrygian »

xg15 wrote: post #323
justabystander wrote: post #242

Ad networks regularly serve various forms of malware and spyware, as well as tracking beacons that put my data at risk of being stolen or misused. And once it's in a database somewhere, it's only a matter of time until it gets stolen and someone attempts to hijack accounts or steal an identity. It's funny how you never see the sites that whine about adblockers offer to accept legal responsibility for their complicity…

A variant of this that highlights the absurdity of that very nicely are auto-redirecting mobile ads. The two valid options according to the site (and anti-ad-blocker people) would be: 1) Don't open the site to begin with. 2) Open the site and instantly get redirected. Note how none of the options entails actually reading the content provided by the site. So if there is no valid way to consume the content, you could a…

I noticed this a while back, and it annoyed the hell out of me. So on my iPhone I have JavaScript permanently disabled on safari, which is my default browser and use chrome as an auxiliary for any site that I really want to access but can't do so without JavaScript enabled in safari.
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