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How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

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Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#111

Post by madamelic »

saghm wrote: post #73
1970-01-01 wrote: post #14

Google has forgotten the plot. A quick tangent story follows: I attempted to add a Tesla Supercharger as it went live to Google Maps. I was the very first to pay to recharge at the new location. The process went something like this: 1st time: Uploaded 4 photos, local business info, current charger prices, and GPS coordinates. Google replied this would be sent to human review. It was rejected within 6 minutes. 2nd att…

I've stopped believing in the accuracy of Google maps after my experience at my last apartment. The ground floor of my building was a deli with an address like 123 4th Ave, and the entrance to the deli was basically facing the corner itself rather than either side of the cross street, and my apartment's address (using the placeholder above as a reference) was 123 4th Ave Apt. 2R. All of the apartments had a separate…

When I lived in Jersey City, I committed the crime of living at a 1/2 address.

Literally nothing could get delivered to me if they used a Google Maps address bar. My address just didn't exist at all to that search bar. It could be found on maps, just not on that little search bar widget.

I ended up just putting my neighbors address and either intercepting delivery drivers or putting in the notes that I was at the half address next door.

Moral of the story: check your potential address BEFORE you move in

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#112

Post by cube00 »

Vinnl wrote: post #34
1970-01-01 wrote: post #14

Google has forgotten the plot. A quick tangent story follows: I attempted to add a Tesla Supercharger as it went live to Google Maps. I was the very first to pay to recharge at the new location. The process went something like this: 1st time: Uploaded 4 photos, local business info, current charger prices, and GPS coordinates. Google replied this would be sent to human review. It was rejected within 6 minutes. 2nd att…

FWIW, editing OpenStreetMap is very straightforward*, and with that, you're actually contributing to an open data set that everyone is allowed to use, rather than just propping up Google. (To be fair, on a laptop - I'm sure Google Maps is more straightforward on a phone. But for someone already prepared to invest this much effort, editing OSM should be well within range. And if you just enjoy contributing to maps, fo…

This is what I do now, got jack of Google throwing my contributions back in my face.

They also only email if your contribution is successful. If it's declined you'll only know by looking inside Google Maps.

Contributing to an open dataset also feels really good.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#113

Post by cube00 »

mavamaarten wrote: post #99
1970-01-01 wrote: post #14

Google has forgotten the plot. A quick tangent story follows: I attempted to add a Tesla Supercharger as it went live to Google Maps. I was the very first to pay to recharge at the new location. The process went something like this: 1st time: Uploaded 4 photos, local business info, current charger prices, and GPS coordinates. Google replied this would be sent to human review. It was rejected within 6 minutes. 2nd att…

Another thing they apparently do is let business owners (e.g. hotels) remove negative reviews because they're "defamatory". I had a very factual 3-star review on a hotel that was supposedly very quiet, but was super noisy and the AC was not working. And there was literally nobody at the reception at the time of check-out and nobody picked up the phone either. All in all, nothing serious, but worth a review. Purely fa…

I'm surprised you knew it was removed. All my negative reviews appear visible to me when logged in and disappear when logged out.

Only sure fire way I've found is to leave a two star review with no body. One star without a body is also shadowbanned for me.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#114

Post by cube00 »

sensanaty wrote: post #82
usernametaken29 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a strategy. Ask RyanAir. They systematically shut down any way to communicate with them, except lawsuits. Tried their chatbot, hotline, email, letter, fax, small claims court (I’m not joking they don’t even care about that). Unless you turn up with a court order and confiscate a plane, they simply won’t give a fuck, and I’m sure it’s a tactic to deter 99% of their problems before they start

British Airways is the same. After they wrongfully didn't let me board my flight I had to escalate to the Dutch aviation authority (ILT, they sided in my favor within 3 days of me sending my letter in, that's how blatantly in the right I was) in order to get them to stop ignoring my emails, and even with the letter from ILT I still had to escalate to CEDR and they still took forever to compensate me what I was owed a…

>The fact that we're allowing companies to get away with bullshit like this is ludicrous to me.

If they decide to not reply it becomes much more resource consuming to go down the legal road.

I had this with DoorDash, even if you call they just say some specialised team needs to look at it and they'll email you back, surprise, they never do.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#115

Post by nhecker »

Vinnl wrote: post #34
1970-01-01 wrote: post #14

Google has forgotten the plot. A quick tangent story follows: I attempted to add a Tesla Supercharger as it went live to Google Maps. I was the very first to pay to recharge at the new location. The process went something like this: 1st time: Uploaded 4 photos, local business info, current charger prices, and GPS coordinates. Google replied this would be sent to human review. It was rejected within 6 minutes. 2nd att…

FWIW, editing OpenStreetMap is very straightforward*, and with that, you're actually contributing to an open data set that everyone is allowed to use, rather than just propping up Google. (To be fair, on a laptop - I'm sure Google Maps is more straightforward on a phone. But for someone already prepared to invest this much effort, editing OSM should be well within range. And if you just enjoy contributing to maps, fo…

Between the streetcomplete and everydoor apps, it is very very easy to do almost any OSM map editing on a mobile. Osmand (the offline map & nav app) is also useful for some edits when I don't want to leave that app.

Oh, for the simpler days when not everything required an app.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#116

Post by 2b3a51 »

bede wrote: post #21

FYI https://race-term.com is blocked by NCSC's Protective DNS service using my UK University's connection. Are you sure your domain is not blacklisted somewhere?

Just a data point: UK Mobile Broadband resolves the product site fine. (I have not registered with my credit card so the 'adult and malicious site' filter is still in place). As other posters have mentioned perhaps the name itself is triggering some kinds of filtering?

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#117

Post by SoftTalker »

mavamaarten wrote: post #99
1970-01-01 wrote: post #14

Google has forgotten the plot. A quick tangent story follows: I attempted to add a Tesla Supercharger as it went live to Google Maps. I was the very first to pay to recharge at the new location. The process went something like this: 1st time: Uploaded 4 photos, local business info, current charger prices, and GPS coordinates. Google replied this would be sent to human review. It was rejected within 6 minutes. 2nd att…

Another thing they apparently do is let business owners (e.g. hotels) remove negative reviews because they're "defamatory". I had a very factual 3-star review on a hotel that was supposedly very quiet, but was super noisy and the AC was not working. And there was literally nobody at the reception at the time of check-out and nobody picked up the phone either. All in all, nothing serious, but worth a review. Purely fa…

Yet another example of how the incentives work when the platform makes its money with ad revenue. The hotel pays Google for ads and gets favorable search results. If Google then hosts a negative review, the hotel might be less inclined to advertise there. So, only positive reviews get published.

The reviewer isn't contributing to Google's revenue at all, so his honest review is only worth something if it makes the advertisers happy.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#118

Post by nhecker »

embedding-shape wrote: post #42
1970-01-01 wrote: post #14

Google has forgotten the plot. A quick tangent story follows: I attempted to add a Tesla Supercharger as it went live to Google Maps. I was the very first to pay to recharge at the new location. The process went something like this: 1st time: Uploaded 4 photos, local business info, current charger prices, and GPS coordinates. Google replied this would be sent to human review. It was rejected within 6 minutes. 2nd att…

Had similar experience trying to add a restaurant to Google Maps, our own even. First time, rejected because didn't exist, it did. Second time, they say they sent a letter, and they see that someone received it, no one did. We wait a month, they say they sent another letter, we wait another month. Nothing, and now they stopped replying too. Wait another month, suddenly the restauarant magically exists on Google Maps,…

Another path may be to add the business to OpenStreetMap first; I get the impression that Google will scrape changes to OSM and add them to it's dataset. (I've seen several small changes I've made only to OSM get propagated to GMaps a few weeks later. Possibly it's a coincidence, but when the features are exactly the same shape as the ones I drew in OSM, I get suspicious.)

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#119

Post by ryandrake »

bogwog wrote: post #106
WarmWash wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more you ad-block and tracker block, the more scammy the ads when you take down the guards. People who never do any sort of blocking are the most valuable ad-targets, and hence get the highest bids when their views are auctioned. They get Toyota, Coke, and Downy ads. Scam advertisers are bottom feeders and the "advertiser of last resort". Google doesn't really care that much about people with blank profiles, and…

> doesn't make business sense to put a lot of resources into cleaning up ads that pay google nothing If we lived in a sane world, Google would be held accountable for every scam they advertise. It doesn't matter if you think someone deserved to get scammed for using an ad blocker, because they never would have been scammed if Google didn't choose to put them in danger for the sake of profit. "But they can't possibly…

Yes. "At our scale, we can't possibly do X" is a reason to not scale. It's not a reason to dodge doing X.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#120

Post by Chris2048 »

LoganDark wrote: post #59
spwa4 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't making street plans from satellite pictures ruled transformative? So if you get an AI to make street plans from Google maps, satellite layer, you're not violating copyright are you?

If you obtain the satellite images directly from Google Maps, you can still have problems because you might not have permission to use the data. That's not copyright though.

> you might not have permission to use the data

Isn't it fair use, like training data?

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