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Google AdWords Exploit Seen in the Wild

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Re: Google AdWords Exploit Seen in the Wild

#11

Post by tpetry »

blakesterz wrote: post #9

Every once in a while I'll do a search on Google from a browser with no blocker for something like 'ebay' or some other big brand name and I'm always surprised to see that big brand name has bought ads for themselves, it never made sense since they're always the first search result anyways. Now I can only assume two things... 1. Some number of those ads were scams 2. Some large number of people just blindly click on…

If a large brand like Uber wouldn‘t buy (really expensive) keywords like „uber“ some of their rivals like lyft could bid on it. So uber would lose a customer who was really interested in uber to lyft. Exchange company names how you like. Its especially expensive for shops etc.

Google will not change any rules to forbid bidding on brand names because they are making a ton of money of it. Think of something like amazon paying more than $1 for every click just to not loose any potential customer. Adwords is a money burning system.

Re: Google AdWords Exploit Seen in the Wild

#12

Post by jstanley »

sambe wrote: post #7
32032141 wrote: post #4

This is an explicit tool in adwords, believe it or not. The feature is intended so that you can have a link "to" http://trackersRus.com/ which forwards to http://ebay.com/ , without the user seeing that bit of ugly. It's been used in campaigns for years, I've reported probably hundreds of these distributing malware.

If Google enforced that hosts/domains matched, could you not redirect from your own host to the tracking provider (and them back to you)?

Yes, but most of the people buying ads are not technically competent enough to make this happen.

Google's solution ensures that the marketing people get what they want without the technical people standing in the way.

Re: Google AdWords Exploit Seen in the Wild

#13

Post by londons_explore »

blakesterz wrote: post #9

Every once in a while I'll do a search on Google from a browser with no blocker for something like 'ebay' or some other big brand name and I'm always surprised to see that big brand name has bought ads for themselves, it never made sense since they're always the first search result anyways. Now I can only assume two things... 1. Some number of those ads were scams 2. Some large number of people just blindly click on…

Bidding on your own company name is very cheap because your site has a very high quality score for that keyword (ie. Google's algorithms think the users query will be answered by going to that domain).

A high quality score gives you an effective discount in the ad auction. You might only need to pay $0.01 for that ad, whereas your competitor would need to pay $1

Re: Google AdWords Exploit Seen in the Wild

#14

Post by holmberd »

tpetry wrote: post #11
blakesterz wrote: post #9

Every once in a while I'll do a search on Google from a browser with no blocker for something like 'ebay' or some other big brand name and I'm always surprised to see that big brand name has bought ads for themselves, it never made sense since they're always the first search result anyways. Now I can only assume two things... 1. Some number of those ads were scams 2. Some large number of people just blindly click on…

If a large brand like Uber wouldn‘t buy (really expensive) keywords like „uber“ some of their rivals like lyft could bid on it. So uber would lose a customer who was really interested in uber to lyft. Exchange company names how you like. Its especially expensive for shops etc. Google will not change any rules to forbid bidding on brand names because they are making a ton of money of it. Think of something like amazon…

They have some rules in place, try bidding on Fortnite.

Re: Google AdWords Exploit Seen in the Wild

#15

Post by lawl »

burger_moon wrote: post #8

What happens when you call the number?

From seeing scam pranks on youtube. You get a scam call center telling you to install teamviewer or something. They run netstat and open the event viewer, tell you your pc has hundreds of errors and people spying on you. If you're lucky they run syskey [0] as form of ransomware. In the end they ask $200 to fix your pc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syskey

Re: Google AdWords Exploit Seen in the Wild

#16

Post by testplzignore »

Are there trademark infringement issues here, particular on Google's part? They are getting paid (probably a lot) to display this ad, and are explicitly allowing buyers to lie about their identity.

If I were eBay, I'd be getting my lawyers on this immediately. Every dollar getting paid to Google for this ad is a dollar out of my revenue, and a lost customer, and is illegal.

Re: Google AdWords Exploit Seen in the Wild

#18

Post by luckylion »

testplzignore wrote: post #16

Are there trademark infringement issues here, particular on Google's part? They are getting paid (probably a lot) to display this ad, and are explicitly allowing buyers to lie about their identity. If I were eBay, I'd be getting my lawyers on this immediately. Every dollar getting paid to Google for this ad is a dollar out of my revenue, and a lost customer, and is illegal.

And eBay will be made responsible for damages. "I click on that ebay ad and then my computer was locked down and a hacker said I need to pay him to get my files back".
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