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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

#61

Post by pbhjpbhj »

aikinai wrote: post #41
RussianCow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

iPhone has supported ad-blocking for six years.

Sounds like they need to work on their UX then because if people here aren't getting it working then it seems likely that most of their users aren't able to. Is it a default installed plugin in Safari?

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

#63

Post by xfz »

ollybee wrote: post #43

This does not seem be a problem in the UK, searches topics that might be prone to this all seem to give the correct .gov.uk site as the first result with no ads that could be described as misleading. I wonder if the UK government, advertising standards agencies and trading standards authorities have put more pressure on google? Or perhaps the legal landscape here makes it untenable to operate such a scam business.

They still pop up in the UK like a rash that won't go away.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jun/16/once-again-cop...

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

#64

Post by sellyme »

lstamour wrote: post #22
jeffbee wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #1, did you ever notice how the "dark pattern" that article was about got reverted shortly after that, except not on DuckDuckGo which still contains that "dark pattern"?

I heard about it being reverted, but I have seen far too many people, myself included, click the links at the top thinking they're the first result when they're not. This article on ads offering gov services has some great examples in it. Remember when Google highlighted ads in different colours? Like the garish pink and green from way back in 2001: https://edge45.co.uk/blog/google-adwords-evolution-timeline/ (scroll…

From that article:

> It’s hard to imagine what Google looked like without ads

...I'm not too sure on that one, Colin. Not a whole lot of imagination required.

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

#65

Post by notimetorelax »

r0m4n0 wrote: post #4

The one that got me was USPS mail forwarding. I am very privy to these things but I must have just misread the URL. 1. Googled “mail forwarding” 2. Must have clicked one of the ads like: https://www.unitedaddressupdate.com 3. Quickly used the autocomplete to fill out all the forms including my credit card information The brilliant part of this scam is that mail forwarding for a year in the US costs $0.99 so the expec…

They even have a disclaimer below stating that they provide more services than USPS but it’s so hard to tell if it’s flat out lie or not.

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

#66

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Larrikin wrote: post #52
Joeri wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In the case described in the article of government impersonation, I'd prefer a 10x fine.

Shouldn't companies actively aiding fraud to the the tune of, I expect, $Billions have their executives go to jail and the company garnished of at least some percentage points of global revenue?

Taking money to put fraudulent ads above legitimate results seems like it's not doing the minimum due diligence to skirt around a willful negligence accusation.

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

#67

Post by aikinai »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #61
aikinai wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone has supported ad-blocking for six years.

Sounds like they need to work on their UX then because if people here aren't getting it working then it seems likely that most of their users aren't able to. Is it a default installed plugin in Safari?

I think the only way anyone would not find it would be assuming it doesn't exist. If you search on the web, App Store, iPhone search box, etc. you'll find it right away.

And the answer is, it's not installed by default, but there are a variety of third-party plugins available in the App Store.

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

#68

Post by wutbrodo »

gundmc wrote: post #46
eloisius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lately I’ve been wondering if a niche search engine popular with hackers and not the general public could run circles around Google search results just because scammers and content farms wouldn’t be incentivized to game it like they are Google. It frustrates me a lot. I don’t even know how to find useful information online anymore for everyday things like “how hot is too hot outside for a cat?” I invariably land on a…

> I don’t even know how to find useful information online anymore for everyday things like “how hot is too hot outside for a cat?” Maybe this wasn't a real example, but searching exactly this (quotes not included) returned the answer in a knowledge box at the top of the page and the first several organic results had the answer very clearly in the text.

Yea I'm very curious about this too. Oddly enough, it's not the first time I've heard someone on HN complain about a search query being hard for Google to answer, tried it, and found the answer in the first result (and the next half dozen).

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

#69

Post by aikinai »

mullingitover wrote: post #51
zuppy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ehh, I'm a pretty die-hard iOS person but ad blocking on iOS is a steaming pile of BS, to put it mildly. They flat-out don't work for 99% of ads. They're not ad blockers, they're domain filters, nothing more than a big hosts file, and they block absolutely nothing at the page/element level. The ad industry runs circles around 'ad blockers' on iOS. The lack of functioning ad blocking is by far the biggest downside to…

> They're not ad blockers, they're domain filters, nothing more than a big hosts file, and they block absolutely nothing at the page/element level.

I don't think this is true. I use 1Blocker and it seems to have tons of element-based rules. You can also create your own element-based rules easily with the Safari share extension. You tap the element you want to remove, tap buttons to go up or down the DOM to make sure you hit the right level, and then add it to your blocklist.

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

#70

Post by zargon »

gundmc wrote: post #46
eloisius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lately I’ve been wondering if a niche search engine popular with hackers and not the general public could run circles around Google search results just because scammers and content farms wouldn’t be incentivized to game it like they are Google. It frustrates me a lot. I don’t even know how to find useful information online anymore for everyday things like “how hot is too hot outside for a cat?” I invariably land on a…

> I don’t even know how to find useful information online anymore for everyday things like “how hot is too hot outside for a cat?” Maybe this wasn't a real example, but searching exactly this (quotes not included) returned the answer in a knowledge box at the top of the page and the first several organic results had the answer very clearly in the text.

When I do that search, neither the knowledge box nor the top 3 results answer the question.
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