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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

#151
post #78
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That implies that Google has a right to money it makes from scams. Next up: Driver of getaway car gets to keep his share from robbery, will donate $10 to security guards widow.

No, it's separate. They donate whatever they received, without impact on their other obligations, like refunding victims or so.

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

#152

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…

That invoice scam is why big companies have such complex expense report systems. They need to verify every transaction is real so they can match up real invoices to. I'm more or less trusted to buy $5000 worth of stuff at a time (number is somewhat random, but this covers most travel expense). However they still need to check because if they just pay all bills someone will send a bill in my name (easy to find out a name of someone who works for a company - my name would be chance, but likely enough) even though I didn't buy anything in the companies name.

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Lazy? People who think this way? Mother Nature? Claiming to command the sea? I’m just talking about SEO spam.

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

#154
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…

One of my older relatives searched google for the name of his bank, clicked the first link which was an ad for a phishing site, and 5 minutes later he was on the phone with some indian guy who was using remote desktop to install packages through some janky DOS interface. It was probably cleanable, but I just wound up formatting his hard drive and reinstalling with some really cranked-up adblockers. It was an hours-lo…

> a locksmith accepting a few bucks to let some burglar into my house no questions asked, and then explaining to the cops that he's just as much a victim as I am.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Locksmith/comments/41ydjn/serious_q...

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

#155
post #151
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That implies that Google has a right to money it makes from scams. Next up: Driver of getaway car gets to keep his share from robbery, will donate $10 to security guards widow.

No, it's separate. They donate whatever they received, without impact on their other obligations, like refunding victims or so.

> like refunding victims or so.

So how much do you pay for your ability to click on phishing links? Is it $0? Guess Google doesn't have to refund you anything and gets to keep all that money the scammers paid it!

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

#157
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Firefox" on iOS is just a WebKit reskin; Apple forbids 3rd-party browsers.

Mozilla does their best with Firefox Focus (which is also a "Safari Content Blocker"), but you cannot use normal Firefox extensions on iOS, including ad and script blockers.

I was extremely frustrated to buy an iPhone for privacy, only to find that there is no way to selectively block javascript! They only provide a coarse toggle with Safari.

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

#158

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…

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

#159
post #134

Google, Mozilla, et alia have trained people to not enter "www.whitehouse.gov" into the combined search/url bar, but simply "white house", and then to click on one of the links that shows up in search results, because this behavior increases clicks on their ads. It's shameful. Businesses used to list the URL for their company website. Now it's "find us on facebag!"

To be fair, I'm more likely to get the official site in the presence of a typo via a search engine. In the case of .gov it doesn't matter as much since it's a tiny bit difficult to spoof them, but typo squatters are a problem for the rest of the web.

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

#160
One thing I noticed switching to a custom DNS server on my phone is that search ads are a little hard to identify on mobile nowadays, and I find myself accidentally clicking them up to a few times per week (the mistake is immediately apparent because the site won't load).
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