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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

#101

Post by evgen »

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…

Simply not true. I have been using Firefox Focus and 1Blocker on iOS for years and ads are not significantly more noticeable than on desktop Firefox with uBlock Origin. I think you quite misinformed on this subject.

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

#102

Post by iaml »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #58
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.

Yeah the internet is completely different without blockers. I install uBlock Origin on every browser I come across and I've gotten random comments from other users about how everything just seems better for some reason. Firefox supports uBlock Origin on mobile too, people love it when they try it out and find that there's no idiotic YouTube ads anymore. Firefox should just ship uBlock Origin by default and make it th…

They actually have firefox focus app with integrated adblock, at least on apple devices.

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

#103

Post by rightbyte »

eloisius wrote: post #45
melomal wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 It's gotten to the point where spam sites with out of date articles are now ranking number 1.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…

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…

Google doesn't care. Just having one FTE proactively blacklisting scams would clean up most of the mess. It is way easier to clean high ranking scam/SEO sites then to make a new one.

But Google are getting money of scams so ...

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

#104

Post by jacquesm »

exporectomy wrote: post #95
jacquesm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some lost millions .

In genuine scams, yes. But nobody will accidentally pay millions for a business license that's also available for free.

That's true, that's outside of the expected range. But confusion of authority is the same principle at this level or at a higher one it doesn't really matter. This particular context has a low expected value but the same principle in another context can cost very large amounts of money.

Recently a big dutch retailer got caught out by a small thing, a suppliers administrative email got hacked and the company as a result wired a couple of million to the wrong recipient.

The real problem in this case is that Google has a perverse incentive to allow these ads-as-serps. Personally I think Google should be named as a co-conspirator in fraud cases like these. That would get them to clear this up pronto.

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

#105

Post by yarcob »

exporectomy wrote: post #94
FriedrichN wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As long as they actually provide the service they're advertising, it doesn't sound quite as bad as an actual scam. Reselling something at a markup but with better advertising is common in commerce. Up to the customer to decide if the price is what they're willing to pay. It's only government services that have a kind of aura of "don't be a dick" around them, maybe because people feel they can trust them not to be pro…

It's definitely a scam. They do not "provide a service", they mislead you into thinking you are dealing with a government office and that you are paying an official fee.

This is not "better advertising", it's just a scam.

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

#106

Post by techrat »

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…

> This stuff needs to be regulated,

Regulated? Fraud is illegal.

It needs to be PROSECUTED.

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

#107

Post by tialaramex »

wutbrodo wrote: post #68
gundmc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

Humans are lazy. It would be more effort, after constructing their argument, to actually sit down and test that the argument passes a basic sense test. So, they don't. And most of the people reading (and upvoting to signal "I agree") won't either. Why should they? They agree with it, there's no sense in fact checking things you agree with, right?

You can see this in the recent Google 2FA threads too, lots of people were quite sure Google is doing this to get their phone numbers. The facts don't line up with that, but who has time for facts? They know they're right, and so do the people upvoting. If you point out the facts a handful of confused people might agree, yeah, what you're saying does seem to match reality, but that's no match for the self-assurance of those who haven't checked at all.

Much of the time you can get a long way on just lots of people believing you, without any basis in reality. But Mother Nature couldn't care less what you believe, and it's tricky for people who think this way to sense where the line will be until they've stepped over it.

Better versions of the (apocryphal) story of King Cnut the Great can get this across. The courtiers pretend to believe their King's claim to command the sea, but the sea of course couldn't give a shit, it's just water, it obeys Mother Nature's laws (in this case Gravity via a fairly circuitous process causes Tides) but not the whims of men.

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

#108

Post by jimktrains2 »

raister wrote: post #96
aidos wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ema…

You usually login in the West Coast, then, all of a sudden, you started login in the East Coast -- hey, GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, isn't that ODD????????????????? I can't believe they act as they don't know what's going on and have no means to deter this. They SHOULD BE LIABLE!

No, that isn't really odd. People travel. Should my account be locked everytime I visit family?

I permanently lost access to may aim account a while back because I tried to connect while traveling out of country.

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

#109

Post by naturalauction »

Closi wrote: post #74
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.

My first attempt, “tv license”, brings back a form-filling service above the real one too. I think Google has really increased the number of in-search ads recently. It used to be that they were obvious and at the top/side, now they look like regular results and often fill up the whole first page. IMO they know they are dominant enough in the market now that they can get away with providing garbage results for some sh…

I tried driving licence (at least the ones who popped up for me made it very clear they aren't government affiliated) and national insurance number. The national insurance one was pretty much an outright scam.

It took me to https://nino.org.uk/ which claims "All employers and universities in the UK will require you to have this number so apply for your NI Number NOW." That is a total lie - if you don't work during your time as a student you don't need the number at all. You can work without a national insurance number, you just will may pay a higher tax rate until you get your national insurance number when you'll get a refund. It only says all the way at the bottom that they are not affiliated with the government.

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

#110

Post by beprogrammed »

eloisius wrote: post #45
melomal wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

P2P distributed search, help make it better. https://yacy.net
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