51–60 of 236 posts
I’m just amazed Cory Doctorow of all people doesn’t use uBlock and got duped by this. I’ve always seen Google Ads as about as reliable as the fake download buttons on crappy file websites. You tune them out or block them.
I'm sure he personally does use it, but that doesn't stop him from highlighting these issues and talking about it. That's what he's been all about for years now.
The most surprising thing about this is that someone as internet-savvy as Doctorow doesn't just skip over the ads but instead clicks on them. That's just asking for trouble.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't follow - you say "Google is guilty of not verifying it enough", then you turn around and say it's bad that people "demand that megacorporations control access to your products". Which is it?
Both. It can be both. Compare to food: it's like demanding that Walmart screen all the food itself to protect you and then you'd screech at Walmart and only Walmart for not making sure Keloggs cereal is healthy while letting the manufacturer off the hook with zero (I repeat, zero, none, null, NADA) consequences for fraud and damage they caused. The way media, HNers and other people behave is creating a situation that…
Likewise you can't just sell stolen goods even if you don't know they're stolen. They'll be confiscated at best and you'll be charged for fencing stolen goods at worst.
> just following in the shoes of DoorDash and Uber Eats Typical error of his, going "A Bridge Too Far". He points out something interesting and important to lure you in and then hand-gestures grandly toward an industry/practice that he feels we should all question. Because, you know, brilliant genius Cory Doctorow.
https://support.google.com/business/thread/5820393/doordash-...
> just following in the shoes of DoorDash and Uber Eats Typical error of his, going "A Bridge Too Far". He points out something interesting and important to lure you in and then hand-gestures grandly toward an industry/practice that he feels we should all question. Because, you know, brilliant genius Cory Doctorow.
https://www.eater.com/2020/1/29/21113416/grubhub-seamless-ki...
> just following in the shoes of DoorDash and Uber Eats Typical error of his, going "A Bridge Too Far". He points out something interesting and important to lure you in and then hand-gestures grandly toward an industry/practice that he feels we should all question. Because, you know, brilliant genius Cory Doctorow.
Also, I'll give you that he does hand-gesture grandly in this Twitter thread, but he co-wrote a whole book about it called Chokepoint Capitalism. There's a lot more detail about it there, and the logic there applies here.
> just following in the shoes of DoorDash and Uber Eats Typical error of his, going "A Bridge Too Far". He points out something interesting and important to lure you in and then hand-gestures grandly toward an industry/practice that he feels we should all question. Because, you know, brilliant genius Cory Doctorow.
* https://www.eater.com/2020/1/29/21113416/grubhub-seamless-ki... * https://www.eater.com/2015/11/11/9714840/in-n-out-doordash-d...
The most surprising thing about this is that someone as internet-savvy as Doctorow doesn't just skip over the ads but instead clicks on them. That's just asking for trouble.
It’s embarrassing, but I have managed to avoid being really ripped off. The worst one, was many years ago, when I responded to a “your domain name is available” email.
I got the domain, eventually, but I probably paid double its worth, and had to get into an e-shouting match with the scammers, who were trying to lease me the name, as opposed to sell it to me (they do this, so they can quadruple the cost, as soon as you set up some infrastructure on the name).
They gave it to me, in the end, because I made it clear that I was gonna be one hell of a PItA to keep as a “customer.”
Welcome to “being human.”
Inspired by YouTube's DMCA claim system (or my superficial understanding of it). If there's a "bug bounty" on fraud, there will be an enthusiastic market for identifying it. If ad fraud doesn't reliably pay, the fraud market will be disincentivized. Finally, Google itself will have incentives less mis-aligned with its users'; its current incentive system being "the fraudsters pay us more; therefore we love fraud!"
When Google stopped putting a meaningful distinction between paid results and organic results that was a line for me. It's fine to have an adverts - you have to pay the bills but when the adverts become the results it's just pay to play rentseeking by Google and the product is now untrustworthy and on a downward spiral as a result. Amazon search results have taken a similar route, you can search for something specific and get something totally unsuitable as top result now.