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Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

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Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#311

Post by sundvor »

icoder wrote: post #123
HomeDeLaPot wrote: post #107

Every YouTube ad I see now is an AI-generated scam ad hawking everything from free electricity to anti-aging products to birdhouses hand-carved by an AI-generated senior citizen. I've seen some multiple times, days or weeks apart. Their advertising standards are a complete joke.

I've flagged an AI-generated add once that promoted a small device that could cool a hot room (many degrees celcius lower, very quickly, for very little energy and very little money and without external components), defying the laws of thermodynamics. They said they investigated it and concluded it did not break any rules and no actions where taken.

And they still try to gaslight us into removing our adblockers. No thanks.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#312

Post by acomjean »

cwillu wrote: post #290

Google itself serves similar ads for its own services in all its properties. I've been “critically low” on google storage space for several years now, and every google app prompts and notifies and nags about it on every launch.

I get those. To be fair they're asking for you to pay for some of the storage you are using for free. They have some tools to help clean up, but not enough... They'll keep nagging.

I mean apple music/tv/icloud are always pinging me with "free 3 month subscriptions".

MS is no better with the "lets finish setting up your pc with one drive..." to which the options are [yes/ remind me again later]

I've moved mostly to linux and its refresing.

-A

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#313

Post by myko »

soundworlds wrote: post #183
conception wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the 3.8 Flash release shows they are doing just fine at AI. Unlike OpenAI and Anthropomorphic, Google doesn’t have to release new models to capture VC sentiment every three months. They have the hardware, data and money. And when they release a model it’s very good. Now their product strategy however…

A large chunk of the population don't use Google to search anymore. They go straight for the GenAIs. That's got to be scaring a lot of managerial folks at Google.

truly Google's on fault. Their results have been shit for at least 2 years now

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#314

Post by ChaoStatiX »

I believe Google already has systems in place to block malicious ads and is actively running them. In fact, according to last year's 'Ads Safety Report 2025,' Google blocked over 8.3 billion bad ads in a single year. Of course, despite these efforts, the sheer volume of ads being uploaded makes it practically impossible to catch every single one of them. Therefore, rather than simply criticizing the issue in a negative light, we should recognize and appreciate the platform's ongoing efforts to clean up its ecosystem.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#315

Post by dwattttt »

eek2121 wrote: post #223
hansvm wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- The big problem is that malicious ads are being displayed without appropriate attribution - Add that attribution -- blame Google (or, supposing the ads are good, credit Google; a good header goes a long way toward swaying people's opinions) - But it doesn't matter if a single website appropriately attributes Google's highest/lowest-quality ads. The last step (speculative and hand-wavy) is to incorporate that behavi…

The second you load JS onto your page, you lose that ability, you know that, right? the scammy ads aren't limited to that tiny little box you designate for ads. Advertisers work around that limitation pretty easily, and you should also probably read AdSense terms of service before doing too much to blame google. Some of the language will surprise you.

When you put it like that, it seems like it's too dangerous to offer that kind of access! Maybe Google shouldn't sell it.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#316

Post by dakolli »

jacobgold wrote: post #77

Someone who has spent $100M+ on Google Ads explained to me that Google is doing everything possible to juice their revenue right now, in ways they've never seen before. Seems like two things 1) Google is losing at AI and Sundar wants to mask this 2) AI is going to destroy their ad business and they want to get while the getting is good.

Why would Google be losing at AI, they're SOTA. They have all the users.

There's zero chance that AI destroys their ad business. I get served ads from Amazon in podcast RSS feeds that were directly derived from things I said in Gemini chats. It's definitely not destroying ads lol

I'm surprised by the weird levels of incompetence on this website, use your brain or have you already hawked that off to your favorite AI lab.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#317

Post by j027 »

redbluething wrote: post #258
Jskewel wrote: post #122

Adsense has been a nightmare for us. They have been putting thousands of scam adverts on our website for some time. Think "you have been looking at xxx and must pay a $100 fine" type popup nonsense. Hosted on the following websites: azurestaticapps.net azurewebsites.net herokuapp.com ondigitalocean.app digitaloceanspaces.com netlify.app Google doesn't allow you to block these domains, because they consider them "TLDs…

Yep. Same!! https://www.cannonade.net/blog/why-i-turned-off-google-adsen...

Wow I am surprised to see this.

I created a tool that automatically follows ads to try to find scams.

But that was usually reserved to typosquat domain ads or ads on porn websites. I didn't know scammers used normal page ads too.

I know tech support scams used to use google search ads, but I don't think they do that as much anymore, so maybe they have moved onto things like adsense.

These scammers usually do IP address checks to check for residential IP before showing the scam, and some also do some basic fingerprinting checks, so that is how they get past detection. That said, it shouldn't be too difficult for google to do some better checks if they actually cared.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#318

Post by dakolli »

hadlock wrote: post #303
conception wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the 3.8 Flash release shows they are doing just fine at AI. Unlike OpenAI and Anthropomorphic, Google doesn’t have to release new models to capture VC sentiment every three months. They have the hardware, data and money. And when they release a model it’s very good. Now their product strategy however…

open router isn't the whole market, but open router shows google is struggling for market share in the limited window we can see

Openrouter isn't even 00.01% of tokens used on a daily basis. China alone uses 500 Trillion tokens a day and they're only 1/8th of the world. Much of the world has a google account, use your brain.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#319

Post by Spooky23 »

jjallen wrote: post #110
conception wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the 3.8 Flash release shows they are doing just fine at AI. Unlike OpenAI and Anthropomorphic, Google doesn’t have to release new models to capture VC sentiment every three months. They have the hardware, data and money. And when they release a model it’s very good. Now their product strategy however…

They can be doing fine at AI models but not so well with AI revenue. Although I am curious if they are not worried and playing the long game confident that their distribution will eventually help them catch up (and worst case they own some of Anthropic). But obviously Anthropic and OpenAI have their own distribution now too.

The other companies are stealing people's work for headlines and sabotaging each other. Google is offering a whole bunch of Gemini APIs that do real shit, with the same terms and contracts and the existing products for most of them.
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