
Ask HN: Does Google have a way to report scam advertisements? - eisa01
I got the linked ad [1] show up on a website I visited. It’s a scam for bitcoin trading, which is presented using the same website as our national broadcaster. I tried to report it, but the only option that fit was “inappropriate”<p>Does Google really have no way to report scams? I am afraid the reviewers will miss it, as inappropriate often refers to sexual decency<p>This type of scam involving celebrities and fake news articles using national media layouts have been going on for more than a year to my recollection<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;retinasket.com&#x2F;?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-ZvVl5af6wIVXcq7CB1iWgO2EAEYASAAEgItuPD_BwE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;retinasket.com&#x2F;?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-ZvVl5af6wIVXcq7CB...</a>
======
rasz
Meanwhile there are whole legitimate industries banned from adwords, like
repair and data recovery _if_ you arent a huge corporation. "We need to
discuss Google's anti-repair advertising discrimination."
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBJ2LD-
Dao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBJ2LD-Dao)

Btw Youtube has no problem runing those scam bitcoin ads
[https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i877ci/those_fake_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i877ci/those_fake_crypto_currency_scam_livestreams_are)
/

or pr0n blowjob banners for that matter
[https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i87jfj/vpn_cumshot...](https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i87jfj/vpn_cumshot_porn_to_advert_on_youtube/)

~~~
phone8675309
The porn banner makes a little more sense when you realize that there is a
small but growing number of Internet users that need to use VPNs to bypass
nanny state restrictions on access to pornography.

Obviously, they’re against Google's Terms of Service and should be removed,
but that’s the market that the VPN company is targeting - people looking for
porn on YouTube.

~~~
sukilot
There is no hardcore porn on YouTube.

~~~
phone8675309
Yes - that’s the point of this ad - targeting the crowd of people that want
access to hardcore porn but need a VPN to get it. A significant number of
people looking for that view softcore or soft core adjacent porn on YouTube,
and this ad (and ads like it) target that crowd.

------
skinkestek
I finally got rid of some crazy annoying ads after I contacted Google on the
ad _sales_ side and pointed out they were basically defrauding their
advertisers at this point after I'd clicked "not interested" for years, made
sure my ad preferences didn't include the topic and was not aware of anything
I had done to trigger those ads besides being an adult male.

~~~
davchana
How did you contact them? Curious. Is it some kind of way feedback?

~~~
terrycody
Google is famous for "non-human support", believe it or not. I never seen
people successfully contacted a Googler.

~~~
davchana
Yes, exactly, thats why I asked, maybe there is a way. OP said Sales Side, so
maybe he is Google's Ad Buying Client?

------
eisa01
OP here: This has been noticed by Norwegian media for some time, but it is
still ongoing

Apparently they have brought it up with Google and Facebook, but I can't see
anything happening, and the options to report ads does not deal with issues
such as scam.

Where is the social responsibility?

[https://www.faktisk.no/notiser/aDw/falsk-nrk-artikkel-om-
kri...](https://www.faktisk.no/notiser/aDw/falsk-nrk-artikkel-om-kristofer-
hivju) [https://www.nettavisen.no/livsstil/var-staude-og-god-
morgen-...](https://www.nettavisen.no/livsstil/var-staude-og-god-morgen-norge-
misbrukt-i-bitcoin-reklame/3423650822.html)
[https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/GGKqyq/dnb-sjef-norske-
kjendise...](https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/GGKqyq/dnb-sjef-norske-kjendiser-
blir-misbrukt-i-bitcoin-svindel)

------
sarajevo
You should be able to do this by right clicking the ad or following options on
the ad [triangle with the I character, top right, > why this ad > report this
ad) - Anyhow, you can achieve the same by clicking the permalink listed below

[https://support.google.com/google-
ads/troubleshooter/4578507...](https://support.google.com/google-
ads/troubleshooter/4578507?hl=en)

~~~
l33tman
I do this all the time in ads in mobile apps but they always re-appear no
matter how you report them in the options.

I think the OP complained about fraudulent google search results though -
there's no way to report them (been wondering the same myself). Only a
"Cached" menu option if you click on the small upside down triangle there.

~~~
eisa01
OP here, it was a Google Adsense ad served on a normal web page. I reported it
using the chevron-button, but didn't think the 4 options were adequate
descriptions

* Seen this ad multiple times * Ad was inappropriate * Not interested in this ad * Ad covered content

It's like they only want to improve their algorithms, not make sure they're
not serving law breaking advertisements

~~~
sukilot
Law breaking ads are inappropriate.

~~~
techdragon
Inappropriate is a maddeningly vague descriptor. I’ve never felt like it’s
accurate enough.

Is it inappropriate for the website it’s displayed on, for me as a user, for
google ads at all... Is it legally inappropriate, morally inappropriate,
ethically inappropriate, or just something I don’t like?

------
bserge
Try more than a decade. AdSense was filled with scams and botnet software (pay
per install, was quite profitable for a few years). Google never cared.

I wonder why they've never been investigated/fined for stuff like this (or
have they?). I'm thinking their defense is that the fact that there's scams is
a legal issue, so go through the legal system...

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It's Section 230. They don't care because they're not liable and they keep the
profits either way.

------
faebi
I recently started to watch a lot of finance and investment videos on youtube
and the amount of scam ads I see went up like never before. It‘s just
mindblowing how so many different scammers get through this system. There must
be tons of people of get cheated like this.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Ah!

I recently signed up for US stock trading using my ASX broker, Commonwealth
Securities - Commonwealth Bank of Australia's share trading platform.

This explains the sudden increase in robocall scam calls and SMS I've been
receiving since then.

Hadn't put that together till now.

~~~
viraptor
The do-not-call register complaints worked magic for me:
[https://www.donotcall.gov.au/consumers/lodge-a-
complaint/](https://www.donotcall.gov.au/consumers/lodge-a-complaint/)

Daily calls stopped a day after reporting them.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I keep forgetting about the DNCR, thank you!

------
codeisawesome
This is an incredibly annoying problem on YouTube as well. Made me go out and
trial Premium so I guess it’s good for metrics by the wrong reasons.

~~~
blackcat201
Adsense has one small info button on the top right where you can click and
report, however, for Youtube video ads, there's no visible way to report them
as well, especially softcore porn. What's worse is that Youtube doesn't care
whether the current audience is suitable or not as long as the ads were shown
at the intended target ( ie gaming related video )

------
samdung
At this point i'm more worried about the chumbox (taboola shit) scammy ads
that appear even on the most reputed media sites.

~~~
firebaze
While agreeing, I'm even more worried that the "taboola shit" seems to gain
lots of clicks even on reputable sites. Out of curiosity I followed a few of
them, and most of the time the linked content is the cheapest "content" look-
a-like possible - still a lot of users appear to click.

I wonder if there are any studies regarding shallow content and its apparent
appeal.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
There are entire industries operating around shallow content and it's appeal.

But now you've said it we can patiently wait the thousands of freshly minted
PhDs to support the obvious.

------
exabrial
No, and they don't care either. For instance, you can type in "car locksmith",
and get an ad for $10 unlock in your area. If you click the ad, that offer
disappears in the actual prices around $100.

------
soared
Google/W3C are currently rebuilding much of this ecosystem and you can share
your input on github.

Project overview: [https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-
sandb...](https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandbox)

GitHub: [https://github.com/w3c/web-
advertising/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/w3c/web-
advertising/blob/master/README.md)

~~~
nwellnhof
In-browser ad auctions and in-browser machine learning for ad targeting?
Incredible what you can do once you won the browser wars.

~~~
soared
Yeah there is a ton of context outside of those links, but I agree. Everything
in that github is in the proposal stage, so open an issue!

------
philliphaydon
There’s heaps of scam ads on YouTube, or sponsor spots on videos promoting
scams but YouTube doesn’t care.

So I doubt even if Google had the ability to report them they would care.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Huh?

Google owns YouTube.

They don't care.

QED.

------
tjpnz
I was getting served ads through DoubleClick a few years back prompting me to
install malware - the kind masquerading as a "security advisory" claiming my
device was infected. I tried reporting them on multiple occasions and nothing
happened (of course). The solution was to stop using Chrome for Android,
switch to Firefox and install the uBlock Origin plugin. Haven't had any issues
since.

------
Rarok
Not scam ads but I've been having troubles with adsense ads that redirect the
webpage I'm seeing to a copy of the website of my ISP asking to update
information about my account.

Wasn't able to report it so... If they get the money they don't care to spread
scams or malware.

~~~
sukilot
How do you know the AdSense ads do that?

------
missedthecue
If you scroll to the bottom of the page on a search query, you'll see a link
called "feedback" by settings and help. Submit your report there.

I saw an advertisement for counterfeit currency on Google one time. The
scammers weren't even trying to hide it or disguise it as collector money or
anything. It verbatim said counterfeit money for sale. It linked to some
Weebly page selling fake bills at a discount to face value. I took a
screenshot and reported it using the feedback form and someone got in touch
with me in about 5 hours and they thanked me and said they took it down.

------
notahacker
Facebook also seems to have a particularly bad record for running this type of
obvious scam ad. Think the main result of clicking the report button is that
Facebook's algorithm now thinks I have an above average interest in fake news
articles about fake celebrity endorsements of get rich quick schemes...

------
enriquto
You should report the scam ad to the website, not to google. The website has
chosen to serve this ad on their site (by whatever means) and thus it is their
responsibility. If this means that ultimately nobody can use certain rogue ad
servers that show scam ads (such as google), so be it.

~~~
sukilot
The website gets money from the ads too. Why would they care more than Google?

~~~
enriquto
They will care only if the users complain, which is my point. It's probably
easier for them to care about a handful of users than for google.

------
zitterbewegung
I've been flagging them too as scams and they generally get taken down within
and hour or two.

I tried to report their actions to their ISP but I think I mistyped the email
address or something because it got sent back.

------
senthilnayagam
I get ads on facebook for cheap Bose speakers and software license serial
numbers for cheap. there is no way both can be true.

wish there was a central repository to submit these potentially scam posts

------
acheron
Making effort to deal with scams doesn’t scale.

------
jacquesm
What ads? Seriously: use an ad blocker.

~~~
amelius
You never disable your ad blocker to see content that refuses to show on user
agents with an ad blocker installed?

~~~
_-___________-_
No, I haven't come across any content I want to see so much that I'd disable
my protection to see it.

When I see one of those scummy "disable your adblocker or we won't show you
this content" pages, I usually Google the article title and either find a way
to see the exact same content without disabling protection, or find another
publication that has posted largely the same content. If that doesn't work, I
just move on.

~~~
mvanbaak
Try to load the reader view of those pages. Works most of the times. I even
set sites like medium and forbes to autoload the reader view :)

------
znpy
Google cares less than zero about its paying customers [0], mind you if it
cares about you reporting some kind of scam.

end users are notoriously not a concern for google, sorry.

\---

[0]: see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165445)

------
remote_phone
If everyone on HN started clicking on every single ad we saw, would that be
enough to break Google’s ad algos? At some point if every single ad is clicked
on, then things wouldn’t work right? Is that not the proper solution to this
problem? I’ve started doing that to hopefully make Google think I’m a
fraudulent user. If tens of thousands of people started clicking on every
single ad, it seems like that would be enough to wildly set their algos off
and force a re-evaluation of what they are doing. Maybe if it was a concerted
plan like “click on every ad month until Google fixes themselves” it might
have even more impact.

~~~
danielheath
You know what happens to “fraudulent users“? No gmail, no sign in with google,
no play store.

~~~
perl4ever
I started using the inurl: feature to search for things, and Google started
telling me I was a bot like every third search and requiring me to do another
captcha.

It was pretty horrifying; while I get that 99.9% of people don't use it, it
was like a glimpse of a future where the AIs watch constantly for anyone who
can add 2 + 2 without help and then alarms go off.

