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Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

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Re: Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

#201

Post by notahacker »

mxkopy wrote: post #172
notahacker wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Linking to company websites so people looking to buy stuff that company makes can find it is a scam, because company websites are biased in favour of that company This isn't a faithful interpretation of the argument. Most people don't use Google to look for things to buy. They use it to find accurate information.

Most people clicking on a link to a company website - ads or otherwise - do so because they want to hear what that company has to say about themselves and their products, not because their childlike grasp of the world makes them expect every result to provide utterly impartial information.

Re: Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

#202

Post by denton-scratch »

juunpp wrote: post #92
Genghis_9000 wrote: post #54

yeah part of google worship has created common misconceptions like that things that appear in its automatic index are true answer to whatever question you have in mind (computers cant read minds). "this is the official link for some product" being only one possible question. then theres also the fact that a search engine cannot know the answer to "this is the right link for this software". i miss when search engines…

> a search engine cannot know the answer to "this is the right link for this software" You would think keeping a curated list of well-known software projects (and others) would be low-hanging fruit. Instead, it is apparently better to throw money into complicated systems... that can't even catch the most basic form of linkjacking. > this is a good example of how chicken shit design leads to security vulnerabilities.…

> and think they know better than the original creators.

This. Gmail freely warps the email standards when they feel like it. If AMP is a "standard" (I haven't checked) it's a standard that only Goo uses.

Re: Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

#203

Post by ericlnu »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #150
ptato wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is not meant to be educational, it's meant to make you aware the product exists. Of course you're don't have to trust what the company is saying, but now you know their product exists and what it does. If it was something you were looking for, you can now research it and ask for opinion.

Advertising is manipulative by it's very nature. Being made aware that it exists is manipulative in a somewhat forgivable way, but often the words and message are intended to motivate people with various forms of emotional manipulation. Advertising is pretty gross. And maybe that wasn't always the case, and maybe it's also using advertising in place of another word, but that's where it's ended up in my understanding…

To add,

It's become lifestyle sales, of you buy this, you'll be this. They use that technique just about everywhere now. Used to be just cars and fashion. Like someone else said, emotional manipulation, narcissistic [my add].

Most people don't think with logic, but with emotions, so they're easy targets. Which makes me sad, because frankly no one deserves to get scammed and lied to.

I'm the type of person to appreciate direct and frank discussion. Many don't like this, especially people having power ambitions.

Re: Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

#204

Post by ericlnu »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #73
matheusmoreira wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if ads were 100% legit verified links, they would still be scams. Advertising is inherently untrustworthy. Why do people trust anything a corporation says about their own products? In the best case scenario, they're highlighting the pros and omitting the cons. Usually they're just straight up lying. I want real opinions written by real people with no conflict of interest. People who are't getting paid by the cor…

I agree, but the fact that even if you hold the view that ads are beneficial to society, Google is still a bad actor and a net negative to all of us, is particularly noteworthy. We all pay for Google via folks paying ransoms and other scams, having to indirectly pay for high ad budgets every company has to pay off Google to avoid their own search result being squatted by a competitor, etc. There is no company on the…

10000% agreed

Re: Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

#205

Post by ericlnu »

agluszak wrote: post #80
matheusmoreira wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if ads were 100% legit verified links, they would still be scams. Advertising is inherently untrustworthy. Why do people trust anything a corporation says about their own products? In the best case scenario, they're highlighting the pros and omitting the cons. Usually they're just straight up lying. I want real opinions written by real people with no conflict of interest. People who are't getting paid by the cor…

Why is this getting downvoted?

I've had legit comments here downvoted too, probably some far right "activists" or corpo stooges doing stuff like that

Re: Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

#206

Post by ericlnu »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #170
notahacker wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I wasn't even talking about paid links specifically. It's advertising in general that's the problem. Call me a child all you want, I don't care. The simple fact remains that they have an inherent conflict of interest. It's not an absurd argument at all. People who want to sell you something have every incentive to distort the truth and only fools believe them.

Yes. Please, people, stop believing their lies. Use your minds too. Don't just react.

Re: Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

#207

Post by ericlnu »

itronitron wrote: post #130
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as you realize how much of Google's bottom line is scam and malware distribution, it becomes really hard to view the company as anything but crooks. Google's other big line of business is shaking down businesses for cash by selling the top result for someone's own brand name unless they're paid for protection.

I haven't used Google Search in over four years but it sounds like they have followed the SourceForge path based on your description.

Pretty much, and worse

Re: Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

#208

Post by ericlnu »

a1371 wrote: post #104

I think people are missing the actual issue here. Google used to have a clear distinction between what's an ad and what is organic. In these screenshots you have to pay good attention to see the top result is an ad. To keep their conversion numbers up they had to constantly reduce the difference between the ads and everything else. The fact that they can do this and we are so used to it that we don't first identify t…

While this isn't the root issue it is definitely a major concern that should be addressed. It's deceptive by nature.

Re: Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

#209

Post by ericlnu »

hddqsb wrote: post #76
dustymcp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is possible with all advertiser platforms, they dont validate for your domain and will happily link to any domain.

Just to avoid no confusion, the issue here is that the URL displayed in the ad (and also when hovering over it) has a different domain from the page the user lands on when they actually click the ad. It's not about whether the advertiser owns the domain.

Assuming you meant "just to avoid any confusion" :)

Re: Google Ad Disguising Itself as www.gimp.org

#210

Post by ericlnu »

upofadown wrote: post #65
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenPGP signing keys have similar problems. Web of Trust is useless if you don't know any developers to begin with, dates on public keys can be forged, and false signatures can be forged by creating a large number of other false keys. False keys can be made more misleading using 32-bit short Key ID collision (and don't blame OpenPGP for this, OpenPGP is notorious for its complexity but at least it tried, meanwhile al…

The big advantage of an OpenPGP signature over a checksum/hash is that you only have to verify the identity once. The identity can be used to verify the signatures of an unlimited number of files. That is as opposed to requiring each file to have a separate checksum/hash. Much more opportunity for deception on the smaller scale. A perhaps less appreciated advantage is that in practice the identities are stored offlin…

Efficiency on scale instead of detail.

A hash method would quickly run out of disk space before it could be used to verify every single file. Hence hashed b-tree for xfs (or is it jfs? I forget), and stuff like that.

A verify once used many times method is more efficient on a large scale.

I'm no maths expert, heck i don't even know calculus.

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