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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

#241

Post by deaux »

ryandrake wrote: post #122
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

These companies have correctly figured out that customers will still give them money, even if they provide no customer support, are actively hostile to their customers, and only respond to lawsuits. Such a weird timeline we are on! People willingly do business with companies who are actively against them.

No.

These companies have correctly figured out that it's much cheaper to buy out governments so they won't actually punish them for all the regulations they break or institute new such regulations.

That's the weird timeline we're on. Governments willingly ignoring large scale violations by large corporations who actively harm their voters they're supposed to represent.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#242

Post by ben_w »

matkoniecz wrote: post #204
ben_w wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, Ryanair stole 100 euro from me once, but if next flight is 50 to 250 euro cheaper than competition... I swore off them a few years ago. Plane started boarding around when it was due to land. We got on, seeing about 3cm of snow around. It went to the runway, whereupon the weather wasn't good enough so the plane waited. And waited. And waited. And then the pilot turned off internal power because we were waiting…

In this specific story you have general Ryanair shittiness but from what I see 80% of annoyance would be the same with other companies.

Ryanair are the only ones that I have flown with who often depart roughly when they were supposed to land.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#243

Post by deaux »

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

Hope you're not voting for any parties that don't explicitly run on a platform of stopping companies getting away with bullshit.

I'm pretty sure the Netherlands does have at least one such party, as other European countries I'm more familiar with do, no matter how small they might be.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#244

Post by franga2000 »

mcpherrinm wrote: post #234
Vinnl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think "very straightforward" is vastly overselling how easy editing OSM is. It feels like editing a database, without any affordances for easily making common updates. If the hours of a store are wrong on Google Maps, I just upload a photo of their store, and it'll be corrected quickly. On OSM, well, most things are out of date. There's no simple 'update this business' flow, just a database editor. And a map that f…

I'm not sure what you mean...

In OrganicMaps/CoMaps I click "edit place" > "Business hours" and get a nice vidual editor with checkboxes for each day it's open and boxes to put in times.

Same in OsmAnd, but editor looks a bit different.

Cartes.app has the "imrpove this place" screen where opening hours is one of the options, but it takes a few more clicks.

Openstreemap.org's web editor also does open hours quite well, but it does have a much complex submission process (it also asks for an edit message and edit tags).

Cartes.app has sattelite imagery as a "premium" option if you donate because they probably have to pay for it. OsmAnd also does, but I don't know if it's free because I paid for it years ago.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#245

Post by franklymail »

an0malous wrote: post #197
OptionX wrote: post #10

Google is the worst offender, but a lot of companies are increasingly hiding themselves behind a wall of automated systems to completely neuter users ability to challenge any decision unilaterally taken by the them. The LLM-age has worsen the situation but it started well before it. At some point it may be necessary to add the requirement for large companies to have a both human contact point and perhaps a requiremen…

I opened a Google Workspace account for my solo business to have an email address at my domain, got suspended a month later, had no way of contacting support since they require login and I was the only user, filed an appeal, got no response after a month, eventually contacted their Twitter support account and had access restored, but through this all they charged me for the subscription three times while I was locked…

[dead]

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#246

Post by deaux »

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…

> "But they can't possibly review every ad before publishing" they say. If that's the case

It's not, it never is; it's a lie on the level of "Poland attacked first". Say, if someone was offering you $40+ billion every 3 months to solve the issue, do you think you could? It's a ridiculous question, of course you could.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#247

Post by deaux »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #220
bogwog wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yep, if Google lost money/owed damages every time someone got a fraudulent Google ad, you better believe those ads would be squeaky clean. Sergey's flotilla needs a new vessel this year though, so can't do that.

Sergey also needs another few billion to spend on lobbying against the billionaire taxes.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#248

Post by laserbeam »

mcpherrinm wrote: post #234
Vinnl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think "very straightforward" is vastly overselling how easy editing OSM is. It feels like editing a database, without any affordances for easily making common updates. If the hours of a store are wrong on Google Maps, I just upload a photo of their store, and it'll be corrected quickly. On OSM, well, most things are out of date. There's no simple 'update this business' flow, just a database editor. And a map that f…

The real issue is local business know about google maps and are often happy to update schedules themselves. The effort for them to know/care about OSM is too high and the payoff low (most clients are on google maps).

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#250

Post by maybewhenthesun »

Jean-Papoulos wrote: post #249

Google is guilty of this across their whole range of product. We hear a lot about Youtube, but it's the same for Ads and Android. I had my developer account banned for a copyright issue, and to this day I don't know what the issue actually was.

Google has always been like this. I used to have a Youtube account with timelapse movies from my holidays. Nothing special, just stuff to show the family, but it was a lot of work to edit and upload them all.

One day I got a message that my account was closed because of a violation of the TOS. No explanation what it was that I violated. No chance for appeal. No chance to communicate with a human about it. It was explicitly stated that it was impossible to reinstate the account. To this day I have no clue what it was in the 20 or so timelapse movies taken from a small sailing boat that offended Google.

It was a good lesson to never trust Google.

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