How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#271

Post by yonatan8070 » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 6:48 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #120

LoganDark wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

When you've got the lawyer budget of Google/OpenAI/Anthropic, you can twist and bend copyright and licences to take what you want with little consequence.

OSM doesn't have the resources to fight Google or similar if they are threatened, so it's better to just avoid using data you don't have the right license for.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#272

Post by mitxela » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 7:45 PM UTC

LoganDark wrote: post #147

Chris2048 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you might not have permission to use the data Isn't it fair use, like training data?

Google Maps has commercial licenses to some of their data. Reusing that data without your own license can cause problems you might not like. This mostly applies in cases where it's provable that the data you used would've required a license that you do not have.

Facts cannot be copyrighted.

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#273

Post by fred_is_fred » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 2:00 AM UTC

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…

Why are you doing work for them for free - and at that level of annoyance no less?

Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#274

Post by aimarkdeck » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 12:31 PM UTC

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Re: How I advertise malicious software on Google Ads

#275

Post by nostrademons » Fri, Sep 11, 2026, 4:37 PM UTC

mitxela wrote: post #240

nostrademons wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is the ToU violation, not copyright.

Violating a ToU is legal, but the corporation might ban you in return because that's legal too. All you give up is your ostensible right not to be banned.

It's a civil offense, but that's different from it being legal. It just means that it's up to the company itself to sue you to collect any damages, and government enforcement bodies aren't going to touch it.

The issue most ToU violations have with enforcement is that it's hard to show damages. If you just accessed their service with a fake name or downloaded some data for personal use, you haven't really harmed the company. So what are they gonna do, spend $10M to sue you for $0? So they just handle it internally by banning your account and discontinuing your use of the service.

But if, say, you did a DDoS attack that caused an outage costing them $100M, or you did large-scale scraping to set up a competitor that puts them out of business, and they can identify you, they absolutely will come after you in court for that money. The economics is different: now the damages they show is much more than the cost of litigating the case.