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Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

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Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#181

Post by temp667 »

rightbyte wrote: post #13
random5634 wrote: post #10

Quick notes: Site owner has not confirmed they screened all uploaded content for malware - this is a major issue these days and google and others will flag you if you host viruses and pump out malware. And no - you cannot sue google to force them to allow users to be infected. It’s not clear that all customer content is hosted on a separate domain, and each customer on a separate sub domain . Your reputation will be…

Something tells me that Google doesn't ban G Drive, Dropbox or MS's what ever it is named when those host malware. I rather not have only the giants host user generated content ...

First - most of these places are running pretty advanced virus / malware scanners. So when you go to download a file from drive etc, a scan is done (at least for files that are not enormous).

This is actually a big issue sometimes for folks who use google drive, because malware will infect their files, they will then be synced to google, then blocked from downloading them ever again!

That leads to support requests list this:

https://support.google.com/a/thread/60528209?hl=en

Even if you pay the ransomeware fee, google WILL NOT let you access your own files again. So years worth of files - GONE.

They do use different origins for these services. Google DOES actively ban users (everything, youtube, drive and email) from their service even users using google services (vs a third party upload service). Ie, if you are going to run a phishing scam, host the image on this service, not google, or your drive account + a lot of other stuff is at risk. I've even seen google follow links to other accounts your google account is an admin on, so can have business impacts and more.

I don't know where the idea comes from that google is very hands off on this stuff, they run a major spam fighting op that blocks lots of even potentially legit email, they do tons of scans through chrome, they do advanced stuff for opt-in domains on their paid platforms (even more intrusive but let's them pick stuff up behind password locked pages etc).

This last one can really confuse site owners, when NON PUBLIC content results in site bans.

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#182

Post by notriddle »

fefe23 wrote: post #32

Can someone explain to my why Google isn't being drowned in a torrent of lawsuits? We are getting stories like this on a weekly basis now. Google is clearly causing measurable harm to your company and you. And apparently to thousands before you. Considering how much money patent trolls manage to extract from Big Tech with considerably weaker cases, how is it that everybody is treating Google like a fragile grandmothe…

People want three things:

1. publishers want to be able to put content on the Web without undergoing background checks

2. everyone wants to be able to discover content with as little friction as possible

3. consumers don’t want to drown in unwanted crap

The incomprehensible Algorithm is the result of trying to square that circle. Give up any of those requirements, and the arms race would end:

Give up #1, and it’ll be possible to do all of the rules enforcement reactively, with no algorithms and no inhumane call centers, because when someone is banned, they’ll stay banned. The ban will be tied to a legal name and anyone caught ban-dodging can be sued.

Give up #2, and it won’t matter how much spam you make available on the web because nobody will fall victim to it. The web becomes less like a publishing platform and more P2P, because you basically only find content on there through your in-person social contacts.

Give up #3, and you don’t need Safe Browsing any more. Good luck selling that to everyone, though.

In order to sue them, you need to come up with something that they should’ve done but didn’t. Having a human review every web page that’s ever published is obviously dumb, so they’re going to have to go with the algorithmic approach.

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#183

Post by megous »

notriddle wrote: post #182
fefe23 wrote: post #32

Can someone explain to my why Google isn't being drowned in a torrent of lawsuits? We are getting stories like this on a weekly basis now. Google is clearly causing measurable harm to your company and you. And apparently to thousands before you. Considering how much money patent trolls manage to extract from Big Tech with considerably weaker cases, how is it that everybody is treating Google like a fragile grandmothe…

People want three things: 1. publishers want to be able to put content on the Web without undergoing background checks 2. everyone wants to be able to discover content with as little friction as possible 3. consumers don’t want to drown in unwanted crap The incomprehensible Algorithm is the result of trying to square that circle. Give up any of those requirements, and the arms race would end: Give up #1, and it’ll be…

> In order to sue them, you need to come up with something that they should’ve done but didn’t.

How so? If you sue for damages, you only have to prove you were harmed by Google's actions, no? And actively misrepresenting your website as dangerous and deceptive to your customers is sort of libelous and clearly damaging.

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#184

Post by drivebycomment »

fefe23 wrote: post #32

Can someone explain to my why Google isn't being drowned in a torrent of lawsuits? We are getting stories like this on a weekly basis now. Google is clearly causing measurable harm to your company and you. And apparently to thousands before you. Considering how much money patent trolls manage to extract from Big Tech with considerably weaker cases, how is it that everybody is treating Google like a fragile grandmothe…

Google provides the safe browsing API to the browsers. So if anything, websites will have to sue the browser makers. However, browsers don't have any contractual obligation to the websites. Seriously. It's a user agent. So if anyone is going to sue browsers, users have to sue or some government.

Users won't sue as long as there's no meaningful harm to the users. And there's essentially no meaningful harm to the users by dropping a single site. As a user, I don't care if any particular site hosts a malware and gets blocked - that's what I want. If that site gets back slowly, I don't care either. That's the website owner's loss.

Government doesn't have standing to sue, as long as there's no discriminatory effect - and as long as the selection criteria is fair (malware/phishing), and they are not negligent in fixing false positives, government will have hard time finding a leg to sue.

It comes down to - as a society, safe browsing APIs are critically important and they have been working reasonably well. You'll have to show they are mismanaging, or malicious, or doing damages to the users. There's no evidence for any of those.

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#186

Post by kortilla »

rossdavidh wrote: post #179

So, clearly Google has too much power over the internet, it's arbitrary and opaque, etc. I agree. However, I think it is worth pointing out that: 1) malware is often very aggressive and fast-spreading, and once it's on a user's computer it's hard to get off, therefore... 2) the system to detect it and stop access to the site has to be automated, not a human-in-the-loop system that might take hours or days to shut off…

Or... it’s not Google’s job to police all sites of malware?

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#187

Post by jeffgreco »

kortilla wrote: post #186
rossdavidh wrote: post #179

So, clearly Google has too much power over the internet, it's arbitrary and opaque, etc. I agree. However, I think it is worth pointing out that: 1) malware is often very aggressive and fast-spreading, and once it's on a user's computer it's hard to get off, therefore... 2) the system to detect it and stop access to the site has to be automated, not a human-in-the-loop system that might take hours or days to shut off…

Or... it’s not Google’s job to police all sites of malware?

Whose should it be? Why would they be better than Google?

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#188

Post by mguerville »

bilater wrote: post #91
stonecraftwolf wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m so sorry this happened to you. Can you show us the site?

The site is https://nextails.com/ I just ran ads with headlines like Nextjs + TailwindCSS Landing Pages Apparently somehow I ran afoul of their Circumventing Systems policy. I don't know how this qualifies and when I appealed they came back saying the same thing.

FYI you’re also blocked by some lists on NextDNS, consequently I couldn’t view your site. I bet that’s a consequence of the google issue, best of luck solving this.

Re: Thanks HN: Lessons learned after Google nearly killed my site

#189

Post by kortilla »

gambiting wrote: post #167
whatshisface wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than further secure their market positions by forcing them to treat their customers well, why not replace the entire company by competition from less insane providers?

No. Absolutely hard disagree. To give you an example of this working well: In some countries(UK) regulators recognized that you cannot operate in the society without a bank account. So a rule was made that a bank cannot close down your bank account without a court order. They can block your access to nearly all other services, block all of your cards, but at the end of the day, you cannot lose access to your basic ba…

And how helpful is that when they can stop card access? That seems like a perfect example of a regulation that ended up being almost entirely useless.
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