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Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

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Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#321

Post by redbluething »

j027 wrote: post #317
redbluething wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 addre…

Yep. I Agree. I believe it's a question of economics, not technical challenges.

Google is absolutely smart enough to make these attacks un-economical. IMO they are unwilling to incur the loss in revenue this would involve (false positives, banned resellers etc).

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#325

Post by j027 »

redbluething wrote: post #321
j027 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 addre…

Yep. I Agree. I believe it's a question of economics, not technical challenges. Google is absolutely smart enough to make these attacks un-economical. IMO they are unwilling to incur the loss in revenue this would involve (false positives, banned resellers etc).

Another major issue is google safe browsing whitelists many of these subdomains that the attackers like to host their scam pages on.

As a result, even though "Enhanced" safe browsing can use Gemini Nano to do client side detection of scams and then flag it in google safe browsing for everyone, the entire domain and all subdomains are whitelisted, so that detection never seems to actually fire. https://blog.google/security/using-ai-to-stop-tech-support-s...

I'm not sure which domains this applies to, but it seems to apply to most of the domains that these scammers actually like to use.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#326

Post by xnx »

karim79 wrote: post #292
dspillett wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but not so well with AI revenue Nobody is doing well enough with AI revenue ATM ( https://isaiprofitable.com/ ). At the moment it is probably more about market share of users, that is where the investment capital will need to be clawed back from when it starts to be called back (or replacement money will need to come from if the investment cycle simply stops giving generously).

Love this. Can we also have an environmental cost calculator somehow?

Dollars are a very good first estimate of environmental cost.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#327

Post by sysguest »

hansvm wrote: post #204
sysguest wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm could you explain more?

- 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…

hmm thought this was about adwords JS 'intelligently' reading page contents, and when it finds such attribution with some special tags, filters out certain ads...

well thought I was getting some actual useful tip

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#329

Post by CamperBob2 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #295
CamperBob2 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Shrug) The creators need to get paid one way or another. Do you want them to start running their own commercials, as if sponsored segments aren't bad enough?

Would that be worse than what we've got now?

Yes, because I couldn't pay $15 to make those commercials go away.
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