Live data from Hacker News

Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

atomic14.com

401–410 of 427 posts

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#401

They are too busy banning my local bakery ads because my account was registered 25 years ago in Ukraine while the bakery I'm trying to post ads for is in Poland. Clearly a fraud.

Probably a question of who Google thinks you're attempting to defraud. If Google believes that they'll lose money, they might act more swiftly, compared to the cases when a user on a random website lose $20, but Google still gets it's cut.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#402
There is a similar point to be made about those fake "update on your loan" robocalls.

- The carriers know, for a fact, that these are spam calls.

- The spammers know that the carriers know this as well.

- The payout on a successful scam is large

- Because of the above the scammers are willing to pay VERY large sums to the carriers

- The carriers are willing to take the scammers money

Nothing is surprising to me about this except the last point.

Seems like "allowing people to pee in your pool, for a price" is very short term thinking.

That being said, maybe it's like that old SNL parody ad [0]: "We're the phone company and we don't care. Why? Because we don't have to."

(for the younger folks, Bell Telephone was a monopoly back then. That's less true now but true enough for the economics to kick in for them)

0 - https://vimeo.com/355556831

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#403
post #354

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.

Google Cloud revenue grew 82% year-over-year I am guessing they gonna survive fine

It's still "only" 10-15% of Googles total revenue and less than 10% of it's profits. It's not nothing, but it's also not nearly as important as the dodgy ads business.

https://fortune.com/2026/04/29/google-earnings-cloud-ai/

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#404
post #379

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…

As a publisher it really sucks. The DSPs must know these ads are shit. It would be trivial to filter them with a bit of AI. I've asked my Google partnered SSP to disallow ethically bankrupt ads like gambling, alcohol etc. They say "we've asked the partners to block those categories"... and then it just keeps happening. They're either unable or unwilling to help. I had to take ads down for several days at my own expen…

There is no explicit IAB category for Gambling and Alcohol in v1 of the IAB Taxonomy. What seems to have been informally agreed is that:

- 'IAB9-7 Card Games' also includes Gambling

- 'IAB8-5 — Cocktails/Beer' and 'IAB8-18 — Wine' means Alcohol.

(Later taxonomy versions have proper values but not everyone supports these)

These blocked categories should be passed to all DSPs by your SSP.

If your SSP cannot block them then get a new SSP.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true, Google is particularly vulnerable to AI disrupting the traditional internet ad model. They have to figure out how to make AI profitable or Google will suffer catastrophic revenue, profit, and stock price declines in short order.

Isn't it obvious? If/when the norm shifts from "googling" everything to asking an LLM, they'll stick ads in Gemini output. They'll probably be less annoying than ads in Google Search results, because people ask LLMs more detailed, context-laden questions.

I think this is their obvious strategy. What's not so obvious is that they'll succeed. Their share of consumer LLM users is around 27%. Their share of search engine users is above 91%. If current growth trajectory holds (which is admittedly unpredictable), Google will command far less of the global internet ad market.

I expect aggregate ad revenue to climb, so this might sting less, but much of Google's stock price imputes their dominant market position (and implied moat). A large proportion of users don't first navigate to Google anymore. They ask ChatGPT. Commoditised LLMs (or worse, a dominant provider which isn't Google) is a very bad scenario for Google.

I think they're going to have to diversify. Cloud compute revenue keeps climbing. Their deal with Apple for "small" LLMs suggests they might have opportunities to specialise models for specific tasks. They still command a massive lead in things like Maps and Gmail, and they can lean on those.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#407

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…

[dead]

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#408
post #379

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…

As a publisher it really sucks. The DSPs must know these ads are shit. It would be trivial to filter them with a bit of AI. I've asked my Google partnered SSP to disallow ethically bankrupt ads like gambling, alcohol etc. They say "we've asked the partners to block those categories"... and then it just keeps happening. They're either unable or unwilling to help. I had to take ads down for several days at my own expen…

Don't you use ad quality solution? why?

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#409

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…

I'm curious why Google wouldn't want to block those domains. I find it hard to imagine any site that would be using only one of those domains and would be legitimate to purchase from. I understand people having blogs etc on a domain like that, and obviously development stuff, but nothing with purchase intent.

Re: Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

#410
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a publisher it really sucks. The DSPs must know these ads are shit. It would be trivial to filter them with a bit of AI. I've asked my Google partnered SSP to disallow ethically bankrupt ads like gambling, alcohol etc. They say "we've asked the partners to block those categories"... and then it just keeps happening. They're either unable or unwilling to help. I had to take ads down for several days at my own expen…

Don't you use ad quality solution? why?

Name one
Post reply on HN