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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

#81

Post by dom111 »

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.

I just shared with another commenter that this caught my Mum recently[0], but a quick search for the same terms "change driving license address" doesn't show anything now.

I did report it at the time (and suggest other family members to do the same) but from a numerous list of sponsored results to now see none is a surprise!

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27151919

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

#82

Post by TeMPOraL »

insta_anon wrote: post #77

I have a hard time trying to understand why governments don’t address these scams more proactively. There is a related issue when you register a new company here in Germany: As soon as the new entity is added to the company house (called “Handelsregister”), you will start to receive fake invoices from scam companies. These invoice look very similar to official ones and some even use the official seal of the state (se…

There's a similar scam in place in Poland, and its continued existence confuses me too. I don't remember getting any invoices after registering my company, but I got spammed with letters telling me to pay a fee to register my company on some listing, and some of those messages did their best to make it seem they're a continuation of the official process. The deception goes as far as these companies being named in a way that sounds government-ish, and their addresses being at the same street in Warsaw (the capital) some government buildings are.

The infuriating part is that it's so well-known, that both the physical government offices and the online forms where you can register your small business, are plastered with big, attention-grabbing reminders that the registration process is free. The government knows about this scam to the point of warning people about it, and yet it continues.

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

#83

Post by rapht »

These kinds of articles always boil down to how Google are not doing their job properly anymore, be it by presenting results that do not include scams, content farms and the like, or by systematically pushing ads (including dubious ones) over organic results, all in the interest of their ad business.

I'm probably not technical enough, but I'm always left wondering how no one created a 'bettergoogle.com' that makes a query to google from the client side and applies an array of filters to google's output, starting by removing the ads and the results from any known bad actors. Could also be a browser extension but that makes it difficult on mobile.

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

#84

Post by habosa »

Clearly these should be banned because they violate Google's policy, so I don't argue that.

But on a more general level, I don't really have a problem with companies offering to fill out government forms for me in exchange for my money.

For instance last year I fought a traffic ticket by myself. It's not hard, but you do have to fill out like 3 different forms and mail them in. Totally free besides the stamps.

There are many many "ticket fighting" companies which charge you $100 to get you out of a ticket. They act like they're lawyers but really they just fill these forms out for you. If I had to do it again, I'd pay the $100 for the convenience.

How do we decide who is a scam and who is improving the experience of interacting with the government? How much friction do you have to remove before it's OK to charge?

Clearly the mail forwarding ones are a scam (it's super easy through USPS) and, in my opinion, the ticket fighting ones are not a scam. So the line is somewhere in between those two poles.

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

#85

Post by jacquesm »

FriedrichN wrote: post #75
ahelwer wrote: post #37

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…

People think I'm paranoid checking domains, certificates, and bank numbers but it's a small price to pay as you found out. You lost $250, some lose thousands. This stuff needs to be regulated, companies like Google need to be held accountable for what they serve up to users. No more hiding behind this shield of "we're just a platform" when they damn well know they're the platform. It's all fun and games until your (g…

Some lost millions.

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

#87

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

ahelwer wrote: post #37

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…

Another common one for new LLCs is threatening, official looking letters telling you you need a workplace safety poster or you will go to jail/pay monstrous fines.

The law is real but only applies in very specific circumstances and the letters come from companies graciously offering to sell you overpriced posters.

It freaked the hell out of my partner when we got that, had to explain to her at 3AM that we weren't going to lose our business over a poster. That kind of stuff really rattles your bones when you've got so much going on already with a new business.

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

#88

Post by aidos »

ahelwer wrote: post #37

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…

It’s rough out there. Was helping a friend of a friend last night who had been scammed into giving out her Instagram password. They’ve change the email / phone / pw on the account. In her case the account is actually a substantial business (art) portfolio with a lot of followers.

Naturally, after a little digging, I discovered that her email was using the same pw and had also been compromised (hackers deleted the emails from Instagram about the email address change).

As ever, the main issue is that getting through to Instagram to get any real help seems impossible. Which sucks, because surely changing all the details on an Instagram account should flag something on their side.

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

#89

Post by bostik »

Joeri wrote: post #34
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.

Not good enough. They still make money off of the ads the affected agencies have to push out to inform users about the fraud problem.

Few things are more profitable than selling both the poison and the cure.

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

#90

Post by stevenicr »

melomal wrote: post #33
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 result…

Interesting to see someone else see this.. I've been noticing siilar for some of my sites, but also for other searches - recently 'liquid dog nutrition' eg.. so I too get the feeling that putting article based stuff front and center they are encouraging users to click ads - and for commercial sites to pay to play or get shut out.. it's terrible when you have a great site on page 3 of google results and see the crap they put ahead of you on page one - while shady sites pay to advertise there.

more and more like (a worse version) of the yellow pages every quarter.

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