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Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

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Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

#31

Post by Karunamon »

jeffbee wrote: post #14
DistressedDrone wrote: post #2

> Muldoon didn’t respond to a question about why the ads were able to violate Google’s policy. I thought it was obvious by now that Google is a money train, and no one is watching the tracks. Their main distinctions as a Fortune 500 company are avoiding human contact and abandoning projects.

Maybe Muldoon just has a policy against returning the calls of a full-time anti-Google mouthpiece that is literally funded by DuckDuckGo. It really bugs me how HN acts so skeptically about most topics but falls hook, line, and sinker for every astroturf campaign that comes along.

I too lament HN's complete loss of even the pretense of objectivity when it comes to anything Facebook or Google, but in this case, as long as the accusations are factual, I think there's value in the competition attempting to keep them honest.

Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

#32

Post by raister »

What's ironically is that the ads were paid with scam money, so it's like Google is in fact, part of the 'gang'... Crazy world! Most part of scams register names that looks like something legit, but, of course, no one seems to care who's buying what they're buying when registering domain names.

Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

#33

Post by melomal »

sen wrote: post #5

I teach everyone in my family to never trust the first few sponsored results now matter how convincing they may be. As far as I’m concerned Google know exactly what they’re doing and are actively complicit in perpetuating online scams against one family and friends. Are we seriously supposed to believe a company of their size, with their talent pool, and their money, can’t filter out such blatantly obvious crap? Sure…

So this is interesting because right now the search rankings are a steaming heap of crud because of what seems like daily algo changes.

It's gotten to the point where spam sites with out of date articles are now ranking number 1. Yet everyone else is being thrown around page 2+. Google is inevitably only concerned about Ad spend so this instability of rankings forces you into their ad spending machine.

Organic results in the last few months have been a cesspit and so by the looks of it we are now in a full stream of shit with Google. Ads are scams, organic results are not what they should be due to endless 'algo updates'.

What's the solution? I ponder this daily. Without Google and Facebook targeting, starting a successful, long lasting business just got hard again.

Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

#34

Post by Joeri »

raister wrote: post #32

What's ironically is that the ads were paid with scam money, so it's like Google is in fact, part of the 'gang'... Crazy world! Most part of scams register names that looks like something legit, but, of course, no one seems to care who's buying what they're buying when registering domain names.

Google should commit to donating all funds received from ads that are later detected as scams to charity.

Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

#35

Post by RussianCow »

bambax wrote: post #18

Having used some kind of adblocking, on all devices, for as long as I can remember, I realize I live in an alternate universe where all these scams don't exist [0]. If at some point adblocking is defeated I'm up for a very difficult crash landing into reality. [0]: almost; top results can be scams of course; but it's rare.

I had quite a rude awakening when I switched to an iPhone recently. I had to adopt NextDNS for its domain-level ad blocking, but it’s amazing how many ads still come through. I don’t know how people browse the web without any sort of ad blocking these days.

Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

#36

Post by grayhatter »

mistermann wrote: post #10
sen wrote: post #5

I teach everyone in my family to never trust the first few sponsored results now matter how convincing they may be. As far as I’m concerned Google know exactly what they’re doing and are actively complicit in perpetuating online scams against one family and friends. Are we seriously supposed to believe a company of their size, with their talent pool, and their money, can’t filter out such blatantly obvious crap? Sure…

This being a democracy, and this sort of thing going on for well over a decade, it must be "the will of the people".

huh?! are you trying to make sense, or just be confusing?

Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

#37

Post by ahelwer »

I fell prey to this. Might have been the exact same website, too. Had had a drink with dinner, thought heck why not file for my EIN for an independent consulting LLC I was creating? Was using a fresh OS install where I hadn't yet installed Firefox with an adblocker. Usual defenses were weakened. Boom, $250 down the drain before I really thought it all through. Fortunately I was able to get it refunded by initiating a chargeback and telling their website support that I believed they were misrepresenting themselves as the IRS. It really was a "welcome to the real world" moment, though - my very first act as a new business in the US was to get scammed. This theme has continued. 90% of the business mail I get are scams masquerading as official government mail to get business licenses or whatever. These websites are run by scumbags who should all be arrested. And Google, of course, should pay actual penalties because it's been all upside for them.

Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

#38

Post by zuppy »

RussianCow wrote: post #35
bambax wrote: post #18

Having used some kind of adblocking, on all devices, for as long as I can remember, I realize I live in an alternate universe where all these scams don't exist [0]. If at some point adblocking is defeated I'm up for a very difficult crash landing into reality. [0]: almost; top results can be scams of course; but it's rare.

I had quite a rude awakening when I switched to an iPhone recently. I had to adopt NextDNS for its domain-level ad blocking, but it’s amazing how many ads still come through. I don’t know how people browse the web without any sort of ad blocking these days.

there are adblockers for ios too, for example here's a good one: https://1blocker.com

Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

#39

Post by jjbinx007 »

RussianCow wrote: post #35
bambax wrote: post #18

Having used some kind of adblocking, on all devices, for as long as I can remember, I realize I live in an alternate universe where all these scams don't exist [0]. If at some point adblocking is defeated I'm up for a very difficult crash landing into reality. [0]: almost; top results can be scams of course; but it's rare.

I had quite a rude awakening when I switched to an iPhone recently. I had to adopt NextDNS for its domain-level ad blocking, but it’s amazing how many ads still come through. I don’t know how people browse the web without any sort of ad blocking these days.

I've been thinking of screen recording some web browsing on my desktop and phone without an ad blocker just to record for posterity how truly awful the modem web is without an ad blocker.

I can't even read most news websites these days because the ads are so utterly distracting and awful.

Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban

#40

Post by [deleted] »

bambax wrote: post #18

Having used some kind of adblocking, on all devices, for as long as I can remember, I realize I live in an alternate universe where all these scams don't exist [0]. If at some point adblocking is defeated I'm up for a very difficult crash landing into reality. [0]: almost; top results can be scams of course; but it's rare.

[deleted]
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