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Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

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Re: Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

#71

Post by chronogram »

roenxi wrote: post #56
AngryData wrote: post #20

Advertising is a scourge upon society.

Voters are also usually not responsible enough to handle democracy either, and yet here we are. 1) If you don't tell people about your product, they won't know about it and probably won't use it. Word of mouth is ok, but it is surprising how many people are left uncertain and in the dark about what their options are if they aren't directly told what their options are. 2) Without advertising, the internet collapses. G…

> Voters are also usually not responsible enough to handle democracy either, and yet here we are.

What a weird way to start off. You should probably elaborate on that for it to make any sense outside of a high school economics class.

Regarding number 1: like what? I’ve never met anyone who looked really happy about seeing an ad for hot singles in their area, that they should feel insecure about how they look in lingerie, that they should go gamble.. would more than 1% of advertising be good? If an extremely large proportion of a thing is bad, then I can agree with someone calling it a scourge.

Regarding number 2: okay

Re: Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

#72

Post by geocar »

ndnxhs wrote: post #61
roenxi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voters are also usually not responsible enough to handle democracy either, and yet here we are. 1) If you don't tell people about your product, they won't know about it and probably won't use it. Word of mouth is ok, but it is surprising how many people are left uncertain and in the dark about what their options are if they aren't directly told what their options are. 2) Without advertising, the internet collapses. G…

The internet existed before advertising and it could continue to exist without it. People still desire instant communication and they would pay for it if a free option did not exist. A lot of garbage like Facebook would fall and real social networks would take place with real interactions not algorithms trying to drive fake engagement.

> The internet existed before advertising

Advertising has been around for centuries, perhaps even millennia.

I mean, I think you mean "before online advertising", but that's not true either! Online advertising predates the web and even the Internet by decades; We had ads in the BBS days, and people didn't hate it. So what's going on?

China does a lot of "social" advertising and doesn't have the problems with ad fraud that the western world does: The trick is that "publishers" are responsible for what they serve. That's it.

> People still desire instant communication and they would pay for it if a free option did not exist.

People do pay for it. That's why we have slack and Cisco, and they aren't alone! The paid ones predate the "free" ones by decades too, but even the "paid" chat systems needed advertising to get those sales– we have throughout history always relied heavily on some form of sponsorship to bring products to market, so there will always be a channel for advertising.

Re: Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

#73

Post by concerned_user »

hannob wrote: post #65

It is interesting how this article starts. A guy has an app which drains users batteries. But it's not his fault of course, because it's the ad company. Except the ad company says it's not their fault, because the ad came from some other company. This fingerpointing points to one of the core problems of the ad industry: They created a system where nobody knows who's responsible for anything, so malware and fraud has…

That is all true but for practical intents and purposes you should probably make ad company responsible. It might seem a bit illogical but from practice standpoint, it is much easier to pursue and punish an ad company than to hunt each and everyone of its clients. Especially that they can just abandon the company and create new one, and it will be just cost of doing business, everyone of those shady players will have an ad shill company that can be replaced quickly in case of trouble.

Re: Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

#74

Post by roenxi »

chronogram wrote: post #71
roenxi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voters are also usually not responsible enough to handle democracy either, and yet here we are. 1) If you don't tell people about your product, they won't know about it and probably won't use it. Word of mouth is ok, but it is surprising how many people are left uncertain and in the dark about what their options are if they aren't directly told what their options are. 2) Without advertising, the internet collapses. G…

> Voters are also usually not responsible enough to handle democracy either, and yet here we are. What a weird way to start off. You should probably elaborate on that for it to make any sense outside of a high school economics class. Regarding number 1: like what? I’ve never met anyone who looked really happy about seeing an ad for hot singles in their area, that they should feel insecure about how they look in linge…

> What a weird way to start off. You should probably elaborate on that

The point I'm trying to get across is that something can be critical to a functioning system even if on its own it doesn't look very impressive. Voters are the scourge of every democracy, they push for all sorts of stupid policies and usually get them.

> Regarding number 1: like what?

Literally everything? You've identified 3 product categories for products that border on scams, but literally _every_ product category advertises. I just flicked through my open tabs, and the first ad I see is for forex (www.icmarkets.com). There is no way I'd ever have heard of them without that ad; in fact thanks to this HN thread I know know how easy it is for me to get involved in forex trading :P. The 2nd is for a retail energy supplier offering me new deals. Honestly I think your 99% figure just suggests you are browsing the wrong websites. Maybe visit parts of the internet that are less sketchy.

Re: Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

#75

Post by underwater »

whalesalad wrote: post #32
product50 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is irrespective of the OS. Basically, on the webview, they are running a downloading and running hidden video with all the trackers going off.

Not necessarily. You can’t run wild on iOS.

What makes you say that? Ads are generally powered by webviews, and there is little that Apple can do to determine what is desired behaviour and what is nefarious. Unless you are suggesting iAds should be the only game in town?

Web standards are introducing resource limits that can be used to prevent this abuse in the future, but that is not platform specific.

Re: Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

#76

Post by concerned_user »

rizzin wrote: post #62

Embedded automatically played videos are a scourge upon Internet.

Also amount of ad space on news sites should be regulated, i.e. > 30% of screen space is meaningless pictures/ads/promo - not a news site.

Re: Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

#77

Post by product50 »

bpchaps wrote: post #55
product50 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is what makes the web accessible to billions of people in the world for free. Most apps offer the option to make an in app purchase and turn off ads. Why don't you do that vs. giving your unqualified opinions on what is good and bad for society?

Does facebook offer that option?

Facebook is not the app you associate with fraud imps & clicks. Stay on topic.

Re: Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

#78

Post by CapacitorSet »

hannob wrote: post #65

It is interesting how this article starts. A guy has an app which drains users batteries. But it's not his fault of course, because it's the ad company. Except the ad company says it's not their fault, because the ad came from some other company. This fingerpointing points to one of the core problems of the ad industry: They created a system where nobody knows who's responsible for anything, so malware and fraud has…

To me it feels like it's less of "nobody [in the industry] knows who's responsible" and more of "everybody takes responsibility for the earnings and nobody for the evils".

Re: Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

#79

Post by perlgeek »

Reason077 wrote: post #66

Isn’t the real issue here a technical one with MoPub’s ad platform? How is it possible that a banner ad can open hidden off-screen views, and play video ads using a different (fraudulent) publisher ID? Can’t banners be sandboxed in order to prevent such activity, or at least detect it?

Or phrased another way, why does a banner need to be anything more than an image, possibly an animated image?

Everything else screams of abuse and unnecessary tracking.

Re: Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

#80

Post by hrdwdmrbl »

product50 wrote: post #31
hrdwdmrbl wrote: post #26

My first thought is that this is really Google's problem to fix. How is it even possible to do this on Android? Or is this also possible on iOS?

This is irrespective of the OS. Basically, on the webview, they are running a downloading and running hidden video with all the trackers going off.

It's not clear from the article, but this is only possible when the app is being viewed right?
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