
How we fought bad ads in 2015 - finid
https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/better-ads-report.html
======
Paul_S
How I fought bad ads in 2016 (in order of impact on usability/performance):

[http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/](http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/)
(transparent and no overhead, works on Android too!)

[https://www.eff.org/privacybadger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock) (a
handful of websites will detect it - you can then switch to visual blocking
for that domain to get around it, for FF: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
GB/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
GB/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/) )

[https://noscript.net/](https://noscript.net/) (overkill for some, a lot of
hand tweaking required to keep the Internet working)

Result: 0 (zero) explicit ads

Long term result: more money being poured into covert marketing

~~~
eevilspock
Agreed, __all __ads are bad.

And let's call the advertising business model what it is: a get rich quick
scheme. Undercut the straight up competitors that charge for their product by
fooling consumers into thinking you're offering what the other guy is
offering, but for free. Come on, who could turn down that? Or make something
"valuable" that no one is willing to pay for (WTF?), so again make it appear
free.

Only the truth is it isn't free. We all pay in the end. The lunch is not only
not free, it's costing us more and its loaded with toxic crap.

Admittedly I suck as a writer, but ever time I make my very strong case that
advertising may be the primary evil of internet[1], I almost invariably
receive a great number of silent downvotes. Upton Sinclair explains why:

 _" It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
depends upon his not understanding it."_

-

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237)

~~~
mahranch
As someone who tangentially works in the industry, you couldn't be more wrong.
Ads literally subsidize the vast majority of content you consume on the
internet. More importantly, ads subsidize and promote innovation. Without ads,
we wouldn't have sites like youtube, facebook, reddit or pretty much every
website that doesn't rely on donations (wikipedia, etc).

It's interesting just how much of a disconnect young people have with this
topic (in my experience, older people are skeptical of all the free content on
the 'net. My grandmother thought she was going to get a bill from youtube for
watching so many videos and not having to pay anything up front). Perhaps it's
one of the reasons why they call our generation "the entitled generation".
We've always had free content on the internet so we don't appreciate or
understand how the people who create that content get paid.

~~~
dhimes
No no no. Your grandmother grew up with free media: radio and television have
always been free and ad-supported. In fact, the first thing that likely pissed
her off was getting ads on her cable channels, because the "rich" folks paid
for cable, which was ad-free (except, I believe, the broadcast channel, but we
didn't have it so I'm not sure).

Internet advertising used to be done far less creepily. For example, you can
do context-advertising: show me an ad for surfboards when I'm reading about
surfing. I have no problem with that. You can guess that I'm interested in
surfing if I'm reading the article. You don't need my shopping history for
that.

~~~
guyzero
Cable has never been ad-free with the exception of channels that people
explicitly paid extra for like HBO.

------
Someone1234
Go to Google right now and search for "passport renew" I see twelve sites
which offer the service with no affiliation. All they do is ask for sensitive
personal information, charge you an additional fee (on top of the passport
fee) and file on your behalf.

Unfortunately I've had friends & family fall for this and similar scams (see
also "birth certificate copy" "criminal record" "arrest record" "US travel
authorisation" "US visa" et al), and sometimes they don't even file on your
behalf (just take your money and run).

These things have been going on YEARS, and I can find numerous examples in
seconds with no research. When is Google going to put a stop to this?

PS - It is disturbing how many less computer literate people have no concept
of what is an advert and what is a result in a search engine. They'll just
click the top thing, which is scary for the above examples.

PPS - Bing is much MUCH worse. More scams, and ads are harder to spot (by
design?).

~~~
gbasic
What do you think are additional things that Google could do? I can imagine
how hard this is to police.

For example:

\- Let people mark different links as spam

\- Hire a larger team to police this

~~~
Someone1234
> What do you think are additional things that Google could do?

Certain searches should NOT be monetised at all. When people are looking at
entering sensitive personal information (e.g. passport, visa, birth
certificate, arrest record, tax filing) it is too dangerous to allow adverts
which may contain phishing scams into the mix.

Too many people click ads thinking they're search results.

~~~
gbasic
Do you remember when ads were called out in gray? Now most non-techy people I
know seem to click on the first entry (the ad), converting good SEO into a
payment to Google.

------
anon1385
>Unwanted software

I just visited the download.com page for Chrome and it has two ads served by
Google. Both ads contain fake download buttons:
[http://i.imgur.com/eAATuwb.png](http://i.imgur.com/eAATuwb.png)

Google ads are dangerous.

~~~
nl
Theses aren't Google Ads.

It's interesting that you thought they are. What made you think that?

~~~
Houshalter
Google's buttons are in the top right of the ads. Clicking on them will send
you to a Google page about their ad program.

~~~
nl
I'm on mobile so I get Yahoo ads(!), but that icon looks like the IAB
AdChoices icon to me: [http://rocketfuel.com/wp-
content/uploads/adchoicediagram.jpg](http://rocketfuel.com/wp-
content/uploads/adchoicediagram.jpg)

~~~
Houshalter
That's really strange because clicking on that icon does send me to a Google
page. You can see the website here: [http://download.cnet.com/Google-
Chrome/3000-2356_4-75205983....](http://download.cnet.com/Google-
Chrome/3000-2356_4-75205983.html)

The website even claims the symbol is Google's:
[http://imgur.com/tWV4ROd](http://imgur.com/tWV4ROd)

~~~
mohsinr
Yes adchoices symbols are used by Google Adsense ads. See this official post
[http://adsense.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-in-ads-notice-
label-...](http://adsense.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-in-ads-notice-label-and-
icon.html)

------
discreditable
> With powerful new protections, we disabled more than 10,000 sites offering
> unwanted software, and reduced unwanted downloads via Google ads by more
> than 99 percent.

Yet when I search for "download Firefox", the thing I see is malvertising.
[https://i.imgur.com/IRQ85fx.png](https://i.imgur.com/IRQ85fx.png)

~~~
Klathmon
You can't just call it "malvertising" when it's just not what you wanted...

I just went and downloaded the app from that add and compared the checksum
against the APK on my phone of the same version (version 42.0.2, downloaded
from Google Play)

They both match. (Both SHA256 checksums are
D0B5A524ABFD5AD9D73DFF4DA398423CB7B337797FBA0C039F3A44CAE259B4B0, if you want
to verify it from me as well)

So that site is providing an untampered download of firefox, so there is no
"malware" anywhere.

In fact that site (HTZapps) seems to be a curated list of "safe" apps
available to download, an alternative app store much like fdroid or the amazon
app store.

It even follows the Adsense guidelines on their download page (clearly called
out advertisements, no more than 3 on the page, only one above the fold, they
don't interrupt the flow of the page, etc...)

~~~
discreditable
> You can't just call it "malvertising" when it's just not what you wanted...

It's an advertisement which seeks to get users to download software from an
unofficial source. The site does not provide links to the official sources.

The advertiser has paid money to get users to go to their site instead of the
official source. The advertiser seeks to misdirect users into visiting their
site (which is loaded with ads) instead of the official one. I consider this
misdirection to be malicious.

~~~
seangrant
By that logic, every mirror site with advertisements is malicious. Don't be
ridiculous.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Are they _official_ mirrors? Linked from the _official_ site? If not, I'm not
trusting them. Incentives are not aligned properly. Also notice, that the more
ads are on such a site, the less trustworthy it is. Do you think CNET /
download.com are good places to get your software from?

~~~
seangrant
CNET and download used to be, sure. Maybe not so much anymore. I'm just saying
official or not, if the checksum matches - it's not malicious. End of story.

You're correct though in that just randomly picking mirrors is a bad idea. I
seriously doubt your average person is utilizing checksums.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I seriously doubt your average person is utilizing checksums._

Sure, if you're utilizing checksums the way they should be then go ahead. But
honestly, even I don't care that much - my ad-heuristic was sufficient so far
:). I should probably start using them. I guess it's like with all things
crypto - the UX sucks so bad that most people don't bother.

~~~
discreditable
Checksums are particularly handy when the original source is inaccessible. In
that sort of situation I can google the file name and verify authenticity
easily.

------
dredmorbius
It's not clear that Google are taking this tack, but, as with content, I feel
it's time to introduce the concept to the Web.

Author and publisher accountability.

Advertising providers, and advertising _publishers_ , who forward "bad ads"
are given a time-out.

Perhaps 10 minutes for the first instance, but increasing durations for repeat
ocurrences. Days, weeks, and months for gratuitious violations.

Ad providers and publishers who find they're being timed out for violating
standards are, likely, going to clean up their acts, and find ways to ensure
that mistakes _don 't_ happen. Including direct vetting of content -- on their
own if not by Google.

This is in Google's interest, because, as with others on this thread, the way
I fought bad ads in 2015 was to install 60,000 lines plus of /etc/hosts
entries, uBlock origin, Ghostery, Privacy Badger, uMatrix, and, for added
pleasure, Styleish, to rewrite site CSS myself. On all my own platforms.

And across the desktops of users I administer for.

Virtually all advertising is worthless, targeted advertising doubly so, and
Google are in for hurt if they cannot reverse this perception. Meantime
they're best positioned to buy themselves a few more years of time.

The other end they could try fixing is to make the results of _directed
product search_ \-- that activity that happens when people are actively
seeking products or services -- not suck as abysmally bad as it does now. Boot
camp for vendors of how you should, and shouldn't, write ad copy, take product
images, etc., might not be out of the question. Not that Google's to blame for
all of this (not in the least) -- Amazon's product search pages are as bad as
any I've seen online (Ikea, by contrast, does well, the moreso because they
showed me what I wanted to look for at the store).

Or maybe it's time for a true Federated Retail initiative.

------
eveningcoffee
For me, they did not, as they introduced the video ads in my region.

These ads push unrelated content in an unwanted way by aggressively
interrupting the normal flow.

This is not acceptable - Internet is not a TV.

I think that the video ads are a huge detachment from the initial way Google
handled the ads.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Video ads are what made me install AdBlock back. They totally destroy normal
use flow and actually make YouTube less useful (unsuitable for playing music
in the background, especially at a home party).

------
bpodgursky
Christ people, shut up about adblockers. We get it, you use one.
Congratulations, I don't care.

But stop spamming every article related to ads with comments about it. Half of
HN readers work in a company powered by ad-tech and some of us actually want
discussion about the article in question.

~~~
tomlock
I work in AdTech and find it hilariously ironic that you're finding the
constant and unmitigated discussion of adblockers in an article that discusses
the constant and unmitigated flow of malvertising and dark patterns.

We built this prison.

~~~
dredmorbius
Bravo.

------
danieldk
_When ads are good, they connect you to products or services you’re interested
in and make it easier to get stuff you want._

They don't make anything easier. If I want something, I will get it, otherwise
it's just annoying.

It's great that they are working to make ads safer (which is obviously in
their interest as well), but they have already lost me (and I guess many
others). Even AdSense ads are obnoxious these days (see [1] for a taste). On
mobile many websites are completely unusable because of ads.

[1]
[https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/185666?hl=en](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/185666?hl=en)

~~~
boomzilla
There is value in advertising: as an information source and a mechanism to
establish trust. The former value has been diminished by the internet (which
some people call the information age). Advertising is still valuable for
establishing trust between the two unknown parties though. Ads in Google work
partly because of Google the brand name. Ads on Reddit r/HateSomething will
not because, well, you know why. So it's in Google's interest to have good and
safe ads (or the perception that they do).

~~~
TeMPOraL
My trust in a product and company is usually inversely proportional to the
amount of ads they run. The more one is aggressive with their ads, the less I
trust them.

~~~
fixermark
While I don't doubt your analysis of yourself, you are an outlier.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'm not an outlier, I'm just experienced in using the Internet. Something one
gains with time.

People do have similar patterns of thinking in the more familiar real world.
Which area in the city you think is safer, and has more honest businesses -
the clean one, with occasional company name banner, or that with every square
meter of vertical surface taken by an ad?

~~~
fixermark
It doesn't matter what I think; I'm also an outlier. ;)

If we extrapolated the view you're describing to the world at large, someone
would have already noticed the general lack of correlation between advertising
and revenue and the ad industry would be decades dead. As it stands the
correlation is pretty solid and advertising is still profitable to be in and
sought after by those who want to grow and shape their brand image.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/why-
good...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/why-good-
advertising-works-even-when-you-think-it-doesnt/244252/)

------
DanBC
I wish there was a way I could opt out of all alcohol and gambling ads.
Especially when I'm watching Youtube videos with my child.

And this article doesn't mention malgorithms. I do a bit of stuff around
suicide prevention, and it's surprising how often rope sellers turn up after a
search for [suicide rope], which feels suboptimal.

~~~
spyder
[http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1335134/youtube-k...](http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1335134/youtube-
kids-app-offers-child-safe-ads-shows)

------
Sir_Substance
>When ads are good, they connect you to products or services you’re interested
in and make it easier to get stuff you want.

Dear marketing departments, I do not want relevant ads. I don't like unknown
third parties influencing my decisions. If I must see ads, I'd rather see ads
for tampons and sports cars and business real estate, because I'm not going to
buy those things, so you're not manipulating me.

Please stop perpetuating the lie that you're somehow doing me a favor with
"relevant ads", they are exactly what I invest a lot of effort blocking.

~~~
billmalarky
You think all ads are irrelevant to you? Do you not use goods and services to
raise your quality of life?

Don't tell me "I just google for something if I want to consume it," because
truly innovative products and services are outside the realm of general
imagination, that's what makes them innovative.

And all the great products and services you learned about from word of mouth?
Guess how your friends heard about them...

Advertising is annoying as hell, but it has value.

~~~
easong
Actually, yes, all ads are irrelevant to me. I have never purchased an item
from an ad, and cut out ads form my life as much as possible. I run multiple
layers of software to block advertising on all my devices, refuse to use
services/apps that force one to use ads, and will leave a restaurant/airport
lounge/other public area if they play content with advertising. I won't read
print magazines because they have advertisements.

There is nothing an advertiser could do to convince me to listen to, read, or
watch their ad. The hidden/in context ads are somewhat unavoidable (eg ads for
YC on HN), but I write code to filter out such things when I see patterns. I'm
working on releasing an extension that subs out all brand names on the web.

And yet, somehow, I still manage to live a modern life of plenty. If I need
something, I'll look for it. In fact, I find that this leads me to higher
quality and more innovative products that better fit _my_ needs - if a service
spreads through advertising, that's very good evidence that it's both shitty
and not targeted at me. If your memory is polluted by advertising, you'll tend
to reach for inferior products first. Advertising has negative value for the
individual and the ecosystem, because companies compete on marketing and not
on product.

~~~
billmalarky
>And yet, somehow, I still manage to live a modern life of plenty.

This lifestyle works for you precisely because the vast majority of the rest
of the market does not live this way. Capitalist economies (where the
consumers are individuals rather than one large buyer like the state) require
products and services to get public awareness. The best way to achieve public
awareness is through paid for mass communication.

~~~
easong
It's the easiest (not the best, IMO) way for companies to reach out to a broad
market right now, because consumers as a whole haven't yet figured out that
advertising is a negative quality signal and are currently terrible at
controlling their information diet. But there are growing segments of the
population that are getting better at reading healthy just the same as there's
a growing segment concerned about eating healthy.

As more information-savvy and time-sensitive (read: higher-income) consumers
reject advertising, companies seeking to target them will have to find
alternate methods of reaching out to them. If information distribution
continues to be disintermediated, then they might find that the only way to do
that is by focusing on building things people legitimately want to use and
tell their peers about. Traditional advertising will become even more a ghetto
than it already is, and will primarily target low-value consumers.

------
will_hughes
What they still don't do, as far as I can tell, is make it possible to report
malware type ads.

On a clean system I was watching stuff on youtube and got some random malware
ad being served up (not a video pre-roll ad, one of the banners that shows up
in the video area). It was the typical "Drivers are out of date" type
bullshit.

I spent about 20 minutes trying to report that it was malicious,but couldn't
find out how to do it. Clicking on the "Ad by Google" link just took me to a
random Adsense marketing type page.

------
elorant
Since I've installed uBlock Origin browsing the web is much more pleasing. I
used to use AdBlock Plus but it ate a lot of RAM. Occasionally I might also
turn JS off, although that sounds like an overkill and some sites don't work
at all. I don't mind ads in general but profiling really gets under my skin.
You search one thing on Google and then you're barraged by relevant ads all
over the web. Thanks but no thanks. I liked the old days when ads were
relevant to the content of the site I was visiting.

------
Houshalter
Not surprised one bit to see most the hacker news comments are negative. But
this is seriously impressive. They doing an impressive job to filter _hundreds
of millions_ of ads. And they are also taking a stand against stuff that isn't
even illegal. Blocking BS alternative medicines, and supplements, for
instance. I'm upset when I see ads for "airborne" on TV or in magazines.

------
xpda
"In 2015, we stepped up our efforts to fight phishing sites, blocking nearly
7,000 sites as a result." One of the 7000 "phishing sites" they blocked was a
page on my personal site
([http://xpda.com/f18ebay/](http://xpda.com/f18ebay/)) that has been there
more than 10 years and has nothing to do with phishing. It's not an important
or high-traffic page, but it was irritating nonetheless to be falsely accused
by Google and, as a result, a several other web institutions.

~~~
dfabulich
What _is_ it? Is it supposed to be a parody? It honestly looks like the site
is trying to impersonate a (silly) eBay listing.

~~~
wmeredith
Yeah, it may be a joke, but it's obviously intended to deceive, which is what
they're after. Why would this need to be in their index?

------
AndrewUnmuted
Google could have fought bad ads in 2015 by not serving up such manipulative
20th century dreck in the first place.

~~~
Flow
I know very little of how the ad business work, but everything on that blog
seemed like "after the fact". Don't they look at the ad first then and approve
it?

They make it sound like they maybe run the ad through some automated tests and
then just send it out.

A decent human approver of ads would never approve an ad that looks like a big
green button that says "Download now".

~~~
fixermark
They do not. The volume of ads Google deals with is far above the capacity of
human reviewers.

------
dcneymh57
Do you know if Adsense tried to make any agreement with ad blockers? Their ads
are not so bad.

~~~
AznHisoka
The content of their are OK, but their placement in a lot of blogs is not.
Ruins the user experience tremendously.

~~~
kaybe
I also hate the heckling coming with ads unrelated to the site content. It's
another significant load on my attention. If it was related to the site
content, it might even be helpful.

------
csn
What is up with the popup ads, by the way? I've been seeing them a lot lately
when I enable JS, even on my bank's site. They were, in the past, tried with
failure and all major browsers got a built-in blocker.

------
triangleman
I'm glad to see that Google has eliminated those scammy "iYogi" tech support
ads.

