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We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

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Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#561

Post by johneth »

XCSme wrote: post #444
johneth wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's almost certainly illegal in many jurisdictions, and they'd definitely not be able to hide that they're doing it indefinitely. A sure way to be massively sued.

Well, won't it be hard to test? The customers could be paying for "increased visibility" in LLM results, but nothing specific. Also, the ad platform could simply hint towards a customer, instead of directly mentioning, thus not being a true direct ad. (NB: customer = the one buying the increased LLM visibility) For example, a user could ask for "prebuild computers", and the ad platform could state: "the best ones for…

All it takes is one determined journalist running experiments, or one whistleblower inside the company exposing these systems.

Plus, you'd have to offer this service somehow, meaning you'd have to describe it to potential customers... just another bunch of people you'd have to swear to perpetual secrecy.

I'm not denying it could (or even will) happen, though. Anything for a buck for these companies.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#562

Post by matthewsinclair »

ddp26 wrote: post #474
matthewsinclair wrote: post #194

I know this is controversial, and imperfect, but the longer this crap continues the more right I feel about this as a solution: What if we taxed advertising? https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0177-what-if-we-taxed-adver...

It would have to be an incredibly tiny tax, no?

Now we’re into a conversation about degree, and not principle. Yes, it could be small, applied like a sales tax a percentage of the spend on advertising. The idea would be to create a price disincentive to do it. Ultimately, it’s a form of digital pollution, so the less we have of it the better (in my view).

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#563

Post by duskdozer »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #461
gomox wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I believe Google is the one caught between a rock and a hard place here because their stock will reprice once the market realizes how much their position has weakened re: search ads. They commanded an absurd premium on ads by virtue of being monopolistic leaders of search. They don't have a better product anymore, only a scale/distribution advantage.

They seem to have been actively making search worse for at least a decade. No surprise they made it worse, that's [seemingly] what they were trying to do. They presumably were doing it to increase "engagement". More time spent getting infuriated with their worsening search meant more time seeing their ads. They deserve to go under. Meanwhile 1 minute unskippable ads on 30s YouTube videos, pop-ups on mobile that cover…

No need to presume: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#564

Post by fsflover »

latexr wrote: post #480
fsflover wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI can also provide the sources. And if you need to be certain, you should ask for that.

Those sources are often made up (pages never existed) or outright wrong (they don’t say what the LLM claimed). Asking an LLM for sources is about as (in)effective as telling it to not make stuff up.

You seem to be much behind the progress in LLMs. Modern ones provide correct, verifiable citations just fine.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#565

Post by utopiah »

svieira wrote: post #386

The particularly worrying thing here is that they're now going to be gathering training data for a conversational model on _how to influence people effectively even when they already know they are being influenced_. Even more than RLFH already does. "We had to build the Torment Nexus so our children could eat" is not a good reason to build the Torment Nexus. The fact that they are not committing to not doing this tel…

Yes... but that's Google from the moment they started monetizing.

When it was a research project at Stanford in 1996 it was genuinely about making the World information accessible.

The day in 2000 when they decided to sell advertisement is exactly when this process started, not just now in 2026. Since that day they transformed from a knowledge management project to an advertising company that used knowledge management, among other tools, to influence people effectively.

It's the same for Meta except they had Google business model as an example.

Those are advertising company that use tech, not real tech companies like e.g. ASML or IBM.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#566

Post by preuceian »

Zambyte wrote: post #557
preuceian wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ns.nl is just for the trains, use 9292 for all public transit

ns.nl supports all rail services, bus, ferry, biking, bike share, scooter share, walking, and even driving directions :)

I stand corrected. I did not know they offered this; has this always been the case?

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#567

Post by latexr »

fsflover wrote: post #564
latexr wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sources are often made up (pages never existed) or outright wrong (they don’t say what the LLM claimed). Asking an LLM for sources is about as (in)effective as telling it to not make stuff up.

You seem to be much behind the progress in LLMs. Modern ones provide correct, verifiable citations just fine.

All citations are verifiable, even the wrong ones, and they always were.

And no, modern ones don’t “do it just fine”, they are still frequently wrong. Either you’ve been incredibly lucky, or have just stopped verifying thoroughly.

But if you’re that confident, please do share the exact models which you trust. Proponents always shift goal posts (somehow, every release in perpetuity, those ones are the good ones and everything before were garbage) so let’s avoid the vagueness.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#568

Post by mentalgear »

tdrz wrote: post #559
miki123211 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get why 1CB isn't more common than it is. The obvious answer is "patents", but software patents aren't valid in Europe; and besides, the Amazon patent has expired; and European stores are, if anything, far, far more horrendous than American ones. I guess upsells are more profitable than one-click these days?

I find galaxus.com (European store) far better than any other store, American or otherwise.

Thank you - never heard of galaxus.com before, but it is fantastic ! So much more high-quality than the Temu-cheap-shit-reselling storefront that Amazon is nowadays.

Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot

#570

Post by everdrive »

yuliyp wrote: post #476

> Now, if someone searches for an espresso machine, Gemini will pull up your most relevant products and instantly write a custom explainer highlighting why your product may be the right choice for them. This is like the essence of the evil of AI ads distilled down to one sentence. For an advertiser this is a dream. For a user this reads like getting bombarded with ads tailor made just for you based on the context of…

I do wonder if that sort of system would be responsive to feedback. I would have told it something like "because you advertised this espresso machine to me, I will explicitly never purchase it. It's effectively banned from my household. Never recommend a product again."

Maybe I'd just be shouting into the void.

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