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Can Google and Facebook Push Adultery Sites Off the Internet?

theatlantic.com

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Re: Can Google and Facebook Push Adultery Sites Off the Internet?

#11

Post by notahacker »

jarin wrote: post #5
notahacker wrote: post #3

This article is bullshit. Top result for a search for Google is an Adword for his site, followed by a natural search result for his site, followed predictably by Wikipedia and some affiliate sites dedicated to promoting his site.

The AdWords result seems to be an affiliate link (note the redirects before you hit the site). It's likely that Google just restricted his AdWords account and not the "ashley madison" keywords themselves.

This may be true, but I think it's a bit rich to accuse Google and Bing of "censorship" when they undoubtedly send him huge volumes of traffic in natural search results whilst (perhaps) opting not to take his money.

That's also assuming they're not taking his money based purely on his website's reputation, which I find doubtful given his obvious flair for generating [relatively] cheap PR by getting SuperBowl ads banned.

Re: Can Google and Facebook Push Adultery Sites Off the Internet?

#12

Post by paolomaffei »

We thought, 'Let's just do one of these ads that we know will get rejected,'" he says. They shot the whole commercial in 25 minutes. When CBS refused it, Biderman's company posted it all over YouTube and the Web, tagging it as the "banned Super Bowl commercial."

--

Kudos to you, Mr Biderman

Re: Can Google and Facebook Push Adultery Sites Off the Internet?

#13

Post by Unseelie »

notahacker wrote: post #3

This article is bullshit. Top result for a search for Google is an Adword for his site, followed by a natural search result for his site, followed predictably by Wikipedia and some affiliate sites dedicated to promoting his site.

The complaint is that his buzzwords are not getting published. Google Adultery, the addwords add is for a competitor...just the issue he's complaining of.

Re: Can Google and Facebook Push Adultery Sites Off the Internet?

#17

Post by mikey_p »

After reading the section on Facebook blocking him, I though "Well duh, he's a direct competitor of Facebook!!"

In all seriousness I don't know how many affairs originate through each site, but with Facebook's volume, even a low percentage could eclipse Ashley Madison. To be honest, I can't imagine MySpace, or any other social network being allowed to advertise on Facebook either.

Re: Can Google and Facebook Push Adultery Sites Off the Internet?

#18

Post by underwater »

jarin wrote: post #8
jrockway wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. How successful are you in blocking fake profiles? How do you even measure success?

It's difficult to measure, but we kind of eyeball it by looking at the decrease in fake profiles with each thing we add. CloudFlare was hands down the most effective thing we've done so far (by blocking users by country and/or by Project Honeypot info). It virtually eliminated all of the automated bot accounts and most of the human spammers. A couple of days ago I changed the signup process to use the Facebook Regist…

The image checking service is probably http://www.tineye.com/

Re: Can Google and Facebook Push Adultery Sites Off the Internet?

#19

Post by jarin »

underwater wrote: post #18
jarin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to measure, but we kind of eyeball it by looking at the decrease in fake profiles with each thing we add. CloudFlare was hands down the most effective thing we've done so far (by blocking users by country and/or by Project Honeypot info). It virtually eliminated all of the automated bot accounts and most of the human spammers. A couple of days ago I changed the signup process to use the Facebook Regist…

The image checking service is probably http://www.tineye.com/

It's something like Oculus, or something like that. I've tried to use the Tineye browser plugin to check profile images, but it doesn't even pick up Raven Riley images (for some reason, like 5-10% of spam profiles have used Raven Riley as their image).

Re: Can Google and Facebook Push Adultery Sites Off the Internet?

#20

Post by contactdick »

It's an interesting method he's developed to generate buzz for his company. Piggy backing big media draw-cards such as Facebook, Superbowl and Google claiming they are banning adds to try and prevent him operating generates a lot more free media attention than the adds themselves would have. I had no idea adultery sites even existed until now.

I'm not married but would have thought standard operating procedure would be to go to a singles website and just not tick married?

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