Google Finally Quashes Month-Old Malvertising Campaign 56
jfruh writes Since the middle of December, visitors to sites that run Google AdSense ads have intermittently found themselves redirected to other sites featuring spammy offerings for anti-aging and brain-enhancing products. While webmasters who have managed to figure out which advertisers are responsible could quash the attacks on their AdSense consoles, only now has Google itself managed to track down the villains and ban them from the service.
Don't do evil (Score:5, Interesting)
unless it is profitable.
Google standards have certainly slipped. You would expect them to prevent this at all cost, and to have a system in place that prevents it from happening. But unfortunately the very opposite is happening: unruly ads are becoming more and more common, and Google doing very little to prevent it.
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googles goal has ALWAYS been generate more revenue, you are confusing there public messaging with what they actually do.
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Google does something and they're called out for not doing that thing?
This isn't making any sense. Are we just getting upset at Google because Google?
Re:Don't do evil (Score:4, Insightful)
No they are being called out for how slow they are, just like when we call out MS when they are slow on patches. It is even worse for google as they like to blow there own trumpet on how important security is to them.
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Actually, Google's paradigm shift from "cool" to "fool" coincides with their date of IPO.
Shareholders are in it for the money and every other consideration is off the table.
Aggravating that shift is the shareholders' "me ... now" short-term vision of making infinite amounts of money in an extremely short period of time.
Look at Bezo's long term vision of making profits at Amazon at some distant date and the shareholders' diminished enthusiasm.
Talented employees who made those companies blossom, and who took
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Sometimes it helps to at least read the abstract. The complaint was about the speed.
"Since the middle of December... ...only now has Google itself managed to track down the villains and ban them from the service."
Another issue is Google's ad system being vulnerable to being bait and switched, even allowing advertisers any opportunity to do that seems a poor decision.
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Well I don't know if that's fast or slow.
I'm an investor not a software security expert.
Not a priority (Score:3)
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Re:Not a priority (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be a priority - because if it isn't, it will start hitting revenue. I'd gone years without using adblocking software, on the grounds that I knew a lot of sites I liked depended on advertising income.
When Yahoo! ads starting redirecting to ransomware-pushers a couple of months ago, I reversed my policy fast.
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I'd gone years without using adblocking software,
-- H. L. Menken [quotationspage.com]
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> Stopping malware is not a priority for advertising companies.
> The priority is to do whatever they can to help advertisers, because advertisers give them money.
Yes, but there is a gap between the two statements. How about:
The priority is to do whatever they can to help malware (while only appearing incompetent and not actually evil), because malware spreaders are giving them money.
All I am saying that this is a very slippery slope. Google is most certainly helping to spread malware, and they are pro
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> Stopping malware is not a priority for advertising companies.
> The priority is to do whatever they can to help advertisers, because advertisers give them money.
Yes, but there is a gap between the two statements. How about:
The priority is to do whatever they can to help malware (while only appearing incompetent and not actually evil), because malware spreaders are giving them money.
All I am saying that this is a very slippery slope. Google is most certainly helping to spread malware, and they are probably making money from it. And they could do more to avoid it if they wanted to...
Malware is the primary reason why I have aggressive ad blocking strategies.
I don't see ads on the internet.
If I never had to clean up some poor sap's computer of malware caused by ads, I wouldn't care about ads. I have the bandwidth to handle it. I just don't want my shit infected.
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Stopping malware is not a priority for advertising companies. The priority is to do whatever they can to help advertisers, because advertisers give them money. Money focuses people's priorities (including mine).
It is actually a priority. Google's ad-ranking system takes into account not just the revenue potential from an ad click but also "ad quality", a metric that considers various aspects of the ad, the site to which it links, and more, all related to the user experience. Because Google knows that it's important that when users click on a Google ad they have a good experience. Otherwise, they'll click less. Given that Google only gets paid when they click, that's directly bad for revenue. It likely also reduces
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one of two levels
Er, I meant "levers". If only there were some way to see my post before it's submitted...
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It applies to all pay-per-click ads. For impression ads the situation is less direct, but bad ads make impression ads less valuable to advertisers.
In the long run, this sort of issue is bad for Google, period. In many corporations the long run is irrelevant, but Google doesn't have to think that way because of its stock voting structure, and Google doesn't think that way.
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Given that Google only gets paid when they click, that's directly bad for revenue.
That's a good point.
system is not foolproof ... (Score:3)
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"Google says that AdSense content is “reviewed by real people and clever machines” before appearing on websites. But the system doesn’t appear to be foolproof."
Maybe their reviewers are in need to something to give them a mental boost so they can be more diligent. Or, possibly time to bring in some young blood on staff.
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Age doesn't have anything to do with it, procedures and techniques on the other hand...
You can't expect google to know everything,.. (Score:2)
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I hate adds since the moment they were around.
Either you must be the oldest person alive, or you mean "since I was old enough to notice them". Also, the word is "ads", short for "advertisements".
Related to the Banksy quote, I'd say that ads on the Internet are even easier to control. Just install AdBlock. No, it doesn't get all of them, but it comes close.
Mod parent up, please! (Score:2)
Exactly my reaction.
Abusing Zedo and Doubleclick Ads (Score:3)
I was ok with Google ads, because they were just a little box with some text links, no bulky images, no animation, no Flash, and if there was any Javascript in it, it was well-written and not a resource hog. (Eventually I gave up and let AdBlockPlus block them too, because collateral damage was easier than special-casing them.)
But Zedo, the folks with popunder windows? Kill them with fire, put all their domain names in /etc/hosts as 127.0.0.2, tell Firefox to block images from them, and block Javascript
SOME visitors (Score:2)
That shit doesn't happen to me because I run requestpolicy. When I load up site X.Y.Z and it says "Here load content from a.b.c" It....doesn't load unless I manually approve it. For all sites all the time, and google....almost NEVER gets the approval unless absolutely required.
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And then you try to open a mainstream news site, like the Washington Times article linked to earlier, and you are presented with a full-page list of sites the page wants to load content from. It turns out the CSS one is washtimes.com, and that is all that was actually required.
I wish requestpolicy would label links by how they got pulled in (CSS, image, script...)
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Yes this would help a lot, especially for videos though, a lot of times, I just give up and move on, or put up with finding the text in the middle and reading it with no formatting.
ongoing (Score:2)
They let this crap continue (Score:2)
They're pretty quick to out Microsofts Bugs (Score:1)