101–110 of 236 posts
Parasites like this have also colonized plumbing, locksmiths etc, as has been discussed on this site in the past. Seems like straight up fraud to me.
It has always boggled my mind that you're even allowed to publish ads targeting other companies brand names as keywords without being the verified owner of that company. But I understand Google here. It's probably their single biggest income stream. Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. More than for any other keyword by far. And I imagine…
You shouldn't need to do this. Googles ad auction on search multiplies your bid by a quality score when deciding which ad to show. A site that satisfies what the user is looking for will have a high quality score, whereas the 'wrong' site (ie. one for a competitor) will have a low quality score - partly determined by the user clicking the back button when they find they have been misled.
That means that if your competitors are pumping $100 into becoming the top search result, you perhaps only need to put $1 into getting the same ad spot.
If you are finding that not to be true, then it might be because your site is low quality for some reason (for example, maybe it doesn't load for some users in some browsers), or maybe your site doesn't have the info people are looking for when they search your company name.
Parasites like this have also colonized plumbing, locksmiths etc, as has been discussed on this site in the past. Seems like straight up fraud to me.
How is this different to what the real estate agents do? If you try to sell property on your own, you'll get many unsolicited offers from real estate agents, sometimes claiming they already have a buyer and sometimes this is even true.
It has always boggled my mind that you're even allowed to publish ads targeting other companies brand names as keywords without being the verified owner of that company. But I understand Google here. It's probably their single biggest income stream. Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. More than for any other keyword by far. And I imagine…
This is an underrated comment. Google are enabling fraud on a massive scale by permitting the hijacking of established names and brands. Often brands or names that some small family company has worked for years to build a reputation for. We do indeed live in a world where tech and capitalism have birthed some sort of horrific offspring that’s choking us all.
Google are not only making it worse because of advertising, they're making it worse by facilitating scammers and fraudsters and various other criminals.
All because their systems are so automated as to eschew any review that might actually make advertising on the Internet slightly less distasteful (and maybe the FBI wouldn't be recommending the choking off of Google's primary income stream)
It has always boggled my mind that you're even allowed to publish ads targeting other companies brand names as keywords without being the verified owner of that company. But I understand Google here. It's probably their single biggest income stream. Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. More than for any other keyword by far. And I imagine…
Simple legislative fix: entitle the victim (small business) to quickly and easily claim a trademark infringement on an ad, and claw back 100% of Google's revenue on that ad. And let Google be civilly liable, if they choose to contest such a trademark claim and they're in the wrong. 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 ent…
Parasites like this have also colonized plumbing, locksmiths etc, as has been discussed on this site in the past. Seems like straight up fraud to me.
How is this different to what the real estate agents do? If you try to sell property on your own, you'll get many unsolicited offers from real estate agents, sometimes claiming they already have a buyer and sometimes this is even true.
It has always boggled my mind that you're even allowed to publish ads targeting other companies brand names as keywords without being the verified owner of that company. But I understand Google here. It's probably their single biggest income stream. Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. More than for any other keyword by far. And I imagine…
> Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. You shouldn't need to do this. Googles ad auction on search multiplies your bid by a quality score when deciding which ad to show. A site that satisfies what the user is looking for will have a high quality score, whereas the 'wrong' site (ie. one for a competitor) will have a low quality score - part…
In this instance isn't Google guilty of fraud? They put on their website something that defrauds, it being called "search" makes no difference IMHO. Isn't there in the US a small claims court for the restaurant to seek takedown and compensation for damages?
No, the person creating the fake ad is guilty of fraud. Google is guilty of not verifying it enough. Same as Apple/Google aren't guilty of creating malware apps then it slips through, but the predatory ass who coded the app and published it is. Same as Walmart isn't guilty of poisoning people when they stock a product that's spoiled in production, but merely failing to verify proper credentials set up by regulators.…
If they can't sanitise their primary means of profit then...
Nothing, because there's no regulation after how many years?
In this instance isn't Google guilty of fraud? They put on their website something that defrauds, it being called "search" makes no difference IMHO. Isn't there in the US a small claims court for the restaurant to seek takedown and compensation for damages?
"Fraud" is only really a problem when perpetrated by not-well-connected individuals. When it's done by big companies it's called business.