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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

#191

Post by djhworld »

mrweasel wrote: post #58

I like how the issue of draining the battery is in title. It indicates that the actual fraud aspect is less important, and that the issue that we're really suppose to be upset about is the battery issue. Directing angre towards the advertising is a little weird too, if there was less fraud, then maybe the ad buyers be more critical in regards to which ads they buy and how many they run.

It's a three pronged attack.

The advertiser who's paying for fraudulent impressions, the user who's battery life is drained, and the app developer who might be getting reports/bad reviews about the app draining battery life

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

#192

Post by Sindisil »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #110
simonh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if literally the only way to get a phone, or even find out what phones there are, was through a carrier store. Take away advertising and the only way someone could find out about a product is word of mouth, or walking into a shop. Functionally everything would originate in shops. That means looking at the available options would be very time consuming, involve a lot of travel and be dominated by very powerful…

There are ways to optimize access to this information. Trade shows that display new products. Mail-order catalogs for companies or industry groups. Companies would find a way to make information - not ads - available for interested people to peruse. The core difference would be "pull not push", i.e. people with a problem would go looking for solutions, and very little space to compete on product information - prevent…

Trade shows and catalogs are forms of advertising.

Also, regarding "pull not push", people sometimes don't know there is a solution to their "problem" (where "problem" might not be a real problem, per se, but maybe simply not even knowing that a given option exists).

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

#193

Post by vanderZwan »

krn wrote: post #179

I don't mind Google or Facebook showing ads in their own products, because that's the only business model that works at their scale and for what their offer. Imagine the world, in which the access to the most advanced search engine or social network was only available to the people who can afford to pay for it. But I don't support using ad networks in the products that are not big enough to sell them themselves. Firs…

> that's the only business model that works at their scale and for what their offer.

Do you have any basis for that claim? Because my impression is that historically there have been and are plenty of other businesses at their scale that did/do not need this at all.

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

#194

Post by jerf »

Razengan wrote: post #153
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…

"What if people were directly paid to view adverts?"

One of the "problems" with that it is that it would reveal just how little money these things make. A page full of busy ads that annoy the heck out of you may still make well under a penny, only breaking a penny if you actually click on something and possibly even then only if you buy something.

Facebook's approximate revenue in 2018 is about 34 billion, it seems [1]. Facebook's user count in 2018 [2], call it two billion for math convenience and a fudge factor for fake & dead accounts. Simple math shows that even if 100% of their revenues are from ads, they're making $17 dollars a year from their average user. Revenue, not profit. And they're one of the big money makers in the ad industry!

Converted to daily terms, that's about 4.7 cents per day. That's what they're trashing your feed for, rearranging it so you see more ads and less of your family, rearranging it to drive "engagement" by putting more rage- and stress-inducing controversial content into your feed, and carefully managing your experience for. 5 cents a day, average.

Advertisers aren't just crashing our society, driving our news industries into death spirals, invading our privacy at scales that would make the Stasi blush, and annoying the hell out of us on almost every web page we visit, they're doing it for almost no money. They can't afford to pay you to view advertising. Even someone making minimum wage would find the offer they could make laughable, because your offer would be coming out of their profits, not revenue, so if Facebook wanted to pay you to view ads they'd be slicing up something like a $1/year with you.

(This is why I've proposed as one solution something like a 1cent/impression advertising tax. It would annihilate everything but the absolutely most profitable portions of the industry. Even a 0.01cent/impression tax would probably kill 90% of it. And I think there's a perfectly justifiable case to be made that such a tax would simply be internalizing externalities and perfectly justified under both left and right wing theories of economics.)

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/544001/facebooks-adverti...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly...

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

#195

Post by Sindisil »

roenxi wrote: post #136
TeMPOraL wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's motte-and-bailey defense. Technically advertising is about informing consumers what's on the market. In reality, it's everything but. Real-world advertising is near-universally dishonest and manipulative. Getting rid of that would not preclude companies from making available (note the pull, not push, approach) information on what they're selling. > It isn't a zero sum game. It is value add. People can't exchan…

> In reality, it's everything but. Well, if you have evidence of that then my interest would be piqued. But I must admit I suspect you're just being cynical. By far and away most of the ads I see are honest but with an agenda. Manipulative is a debatable term. Advertisers are manipulating you in the same way I'm manipulating you right now - I have an opinion and I want you to agree with me. I don't really see how you…

"I assume you'd be paying some sort of subscription free for the pleasure of basically googling ads. Seems a bit backwards."

Back in the day, many better mail order catalogs cost money to receive. Mostly to offset the cost of mailing them out, but partially as a form of filter, on the theory that someone sufficiently interested in a catalog to pay to get it would be more likely to actually order something.

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

#196

Post by krn »

vanderZwan wrote: post #193
krn wrote: post #179

I don't mind Google or Facebook showing ads in their own products, because that's the only business model that works at their scale and for what their offer. Imagine the world, in which the access to the most advanced search engine or social network was only available to the people who can afford to pay for it. But I don't support using ad networks in the products that are not big enough to sell them themselves. Firs…

> that's the only business model that works at their scale and for what their offer. Do you have any basis for that claim? Because my impression is that historically there have been and are plenty of other businesses at their scale that did/do not need this at all.

> historically there have been and are plenty of other businesses at their scale that did/do not need this at all.

Have we ever had an internet company with over 1 billion active users not using advertising as its main source of income?

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

#197

Post by kbenson »

snarfy wrote: post #158
kbenson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm pretty sure if you actually look at cattle branding and advertising branding, the thing being branded is the product. Branding is as simple as the BIC logo on cheap pens, and hoping you'll remember the name when you need one or talk about one. I'm not sure how you're torturing the metaphor to get to the brand being applied to your brain.

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

#198

Post by jessaustin »

bluesign wrote: post #101
jakobegger wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"without fault"? Is it reasonable to assume that a cheap internet connected toy with a video camera and microphone is secure enough to use without any precautions?

" secret embedded camera " I bought "child's toy" and sold you "child's today", you expect seller to check every toy if there is "secret camera" ?

This is settled now, everyone says google shouldn't have put a secret camera in their fancy thermostats:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19407147

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

#199

Post by [deleted] »

krn wrote: post #196
vanderZwan wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's the only business model that works at their scale and for what their offer. Do you have any basis for that claim? Because my impression is that historically there have been and are plenty of other businesses at their scale that did/do not need this at all.

> historically there have been and are plenty of other businesses at their scale that did/do not need this at all. Have we ever had an internet company with over 1 billion active users not using advertising as its main source of income?

[deleted]

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

#200

Post by jasonlotito »

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…

Nice Scotsman there.

> If you use an ad service from a shady company

And what if they aren't shady? Something large from a well known, non-shady company, like Twitter? Because that's who is mentioned in the article: Twitter's MoPub.

And is the reverse true? If you use these shady companies (Twitter and MoPub) are you contributing to the success of shady companies?

Bad advertisers are real, and they really exist. But trying to say that the person who relies on that software equally responsible as everyone down the pipe is a bit of a stretch. Otherwise, I could make the same extreme arguments about pretty much every tech company, big and small, and all the people that use them.

Even you.

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