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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

#151

Post by hopler »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #115
baybal2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am more on the position that advertising as a function of product promotion is dying, in all, but the most extreme overkill forms.

It is in a way, but that's because advertising has become underhanded and is inadvertently being done by the people at large. This is particularly prevalent in the media industry (TV and movies), where things like posters or TV commercials are not nearly as effective as the buzz a movie creates online. When I checked my Facebook the other day, at least half of the posts made by my friends were in some way expressing…

You are the first person who has said they prefer politics over TV shows on Facebook. I definitely prefer TV shows.

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

#152

Post by shawnz »

darkpuma wrote: post #112
simonh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but then I miss stuff I would have wanted to watch, or more accurately miss it longer than I would have wanted to. If a show or movie is genuinely engaging or thought provoking then I want to know, because material like that has value to me.

There are ways of becoming aware of what's available other than watching trailers. For instance, reviewing lists of recent releases then reading the wikipedia pages for them. The A/V format of trailers is fundamentally more coercive than text.

Television commercials are fundamentally more coercive than radio commercials, so should we all transition back to radio just to avoid those small additional coercive factors? No, of course not, there are benefits to television that are more important than those factors.

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

#153

Post by Razengan »

AngryData wrote: post #20

Advertising is a scourge upon society.

What if people were directly paid to view adverts?

Introduce ad viewing apps where people voluntarily sign up, provide information about themselves, and use attention-tracking etc. to reward them with some money based on how many adverts they watch or surveys they answer.

Maybe go further and ban all other forms of advertisement that takes up space anywhere, classifying them as vandalism.

Everybody wins (unless this idea is fundamentally flawed):

• People only see ads they want to see, when they want to see them.

• Companies know exactly who is watching and what they’re interested in, instead of going through third-parties and overly roundabout, sometimes illegal, ways to acquire that information.

• And the world becomes less uglier and noisier.

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

#154

Post by aiCeivi9 »

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…

> Without advertising, the internet collapses.

I just can't wait for it. There are just few steps left:

1. Ads are served from same domain as content (this is now in progress)

2. YT integrates ads with main video stream, sites experiment with server side "render to canvas".

3. Adblock is using ML/AI

4. Laws are made against undisclosed sponsored content.

5. Online advertising is dead, clickbait is dead, free (now ad supported) content is dead. There are only subscription services left.

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

#155

Post by ianai »

netsharc wrote: post #148
runn1ng wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, many supposedly legit websites (even large media companies) run these very scammy "man from YOUR LOCATION got rich in 20 days!" "one weird trick to get younger" ads that ultimately lead to some scam But if you ask them, it's not their fault, but the ad company (Google), which in turn will point to a different company, etc And in the end, people are scammed and Google gets a bit richer, but it's nobody's fault o…

Even responsible journalistic websites like Der Spiegel (insert comment about Relotius here) run ads like these, where the ads appear like "related articles" underneath serious articles... And people ask me why I block ads.

I block, but some still get through. Ive got them blocked by a firewall and dns but parts go out of date. What do you use?

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

#156

Post by NeedMoreTea »

shawnz wrote: post #152
darkpuma wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways of becoming aware of what's available other than watching trailers. For instance, reviewing lists of recent releases then reading the wikipedia pages for them. The A/V format of trailers is fundamentally more coercive than text.

Television commercials are fundamentally more coercive than radio commercials, so should we all transition back to radio just to avoid those small additional coercive factors? No, of course not, there are benefits to television that are more important than those factors.

No, we should regulate advertising strongly enough to remove most of the coercion. In all mediums.

When what's left is overwhelmingly truthful and simply informative, the balance and magnitude of punishment and fines are about right.

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

#157

Post by dspillett »

bluesign wrote: post #87
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…

This totally depends on unspoken agreement and assumptions. - You invited me to dinner, went to shopping, bought some stuff to cook, one ingredient was bad, I got poisoned. In my opinion, here you don't have responsibility, because you acted with your best knowledge and good expectations from shop. This kind of stuff is happening on google a lot too, this is not totally about some small shady company, working with an…

> - You invited me to dinner, went to shopping, bought some stuff to cook, one ingredient was bad, I got poisoned.

The difference is due diligence. In picking ingredients and preparing them the host of this dinner has most likely taken care to use what they have good reason to believe a reputable sources and methods.

People placing add on sites and in apps are doing no such thing for the most part - beyond concerns of outrageously illegal adverts or those that might otherwise offend their audience directly, they are simply picking the provider that is likely to pay them the most. This is insufficient due diligence so they shouldn't be able to pass the buck, but they can because there are so many levels of indirection in the industry it becomes difficult to prove who failed most.

There is commonality with your food example: the recent meat source problems in Europe when cheap horse meat was unexpectedly found in many places it shouldn't have been. This highlighted how little due diligence was happening at various points in that industry and the fact that the many levels of supplier supplying supplier supplying supplier made it easy for problems to go unnoticed as no one thought it was them that needed to check.

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

#158

Post by snarfy »

kbenson wrote: post #23
AngryData wrote: post #20

Advertising is a scourge upon society.

> Advertising is a scourge upon society. I understand where you're coming from, but that's painting with a pretty broad brush. Advertising covers everything from the signage stating the name of the mom-and-pop shop on the corner (which is why cities often limit the size of logos/names on building) to billboards on the side of the freeway. It covers movie trailers I seek out ant watch to see what's coming soon to comm…

I'm not against advertising, but I am against branding. The term was borrowed from the cattle industry, where a hot piece of metal scars the cattle with a logo of the owner. Branding in advertising is meant to scar your brain. I consider it a form of assault.

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

#159

Post by dwighttk »

alecb wrote: post #134
runn1ng wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, many supposedly legit websites (even large media companies) run these very scammy "man from YOUR LOCATION got rich in 20 days!" "one weird trick to get younger" ads that ultimately lead to some scam But if you ask them, it's not their fault, but the ad company (Google), which in turn will point to a different company, etc And in the end, people are scammed and Google gets a bit richer, but it's nobody's fault o…

FWIW the companies responsible for those ads are Taboola, Outbrain, and Revcontent. I posted one especially egregious example last week on r/adops: https://www.reddit.com/r/adops/comments/b0n57e/its_embarrass...

those are why I use ad blocking (hadn't heard of revcontent but def taboola and outbrain)

Man, yesterday I read a New York Times article in a view without ad blocking... I was actually embarrassed for them as a company. It's difficult to read an article when there are so many ads that there's doubt as to if there is more article below the next raft of ads.

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

#160

Post by dspillett »

atomical wrote: post #139
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…

This is why I use Brave browser. The internet needs ads but the ads should be whitelisted.

That wouldn't help here.

The problem being discussed here was adverts being run in the background of locally installed apps, not adverts in pages displayed by a browser.

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