
Google Squashed a Chrome Extension That Flooded Ad Networks with Disinformation - Deinos
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/google-squashed-a-chrome-extension-that-flooded-ad-networks-with-disinformation
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Ajedi32
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327228)

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jseliger
The good news is that there might be some Streisand Effect going on here: I'd
never heard of AdNauseam. Now I've added it to Firefox:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/adnauseam/).

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dguido
This extension made no sense anyway!

Clicking every single ad is bound to get you so many tracking cookies and give
up so much metadata about your browsing that you're working against your own
privacy by using it (see also "cookieless fingerprinting":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13644139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13644139)).

Not to mention that it's actively disruptive to the websites you visit (which
presumably you like since you are visiting them) by generating so many
extraneous and unnecessary network requests. You will slow down your browsing
and get your favorite websites banned from the ad networks they use (see:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13644226](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13644226)).

If you don't like ads, just block them. This plugin is a silly pipedream
thought up by lawyers and artists without any relevant consultation from
technologists or ad industry experts. It's harmful to everyone that uses it.

Btw, if you're using this plugin on Firefox, enjoy the exploits that your
browser downloads and runs in the background by clicking every ad! :-D

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problems
> btw if you're using this plugin on Firefox, enjoy the exploits that your
> browser downloads and runs in the background by clicking every ad! :-D

It doesn't download or run anything. Just clicks links without even rendering
the response, pretty small attack surface there I'd say.

~~~
Someone1234
Also pretty easy to detect/block. Just add a redirect that redirects on page
draw after the click. Only record clicks that successfully redirect.

~~~
problems
Yeah, it might make for slightly weird flow when clicking ads, but you could
totally do it.

So instead of doing that and being respectful and competitive Google decided
to ban the extension.

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dpark
"Respectful" is a really bizarre expectation since this plugin by its nature
does not respect Google's or other ad networks. I don't know why Google would
demonstrate respect to a plugin designed to damage their ad network.

~~~
problems
Because other browser vendors would accept such a plugin as they're not ad
networks. This seems to me very much like a case of Google being too big,
having their hands in both the ad market and the browser market and abusing
that position.

Respect may not have been the right word, but I was going for "not a blatant
abuse of power".

~~~
dpark
I'm not very sympathetic to click fraud. Almost no one would think it
acceptable if a site owner were using a click farm to artificially inflate the
ad click through rate, but somehow a browser extension doing the same is okay?
I have no problem with ad blocking but actively poisoning the network is a
different thing entirely.

If Google decided to block users of AdNauseum and similar plugins from using
Google web products, you'd probably say it's blatant abuse of power and I'd
say it sounds reasonable, exactly as it's reasonable for sites to block users
running ad blockers.

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paulmd
> Almost no one would think it acceptable if a site owner were using a click
> farm to artificially inflate the ad click through rate, but somehow a
> browser extension doing the same is okay?

Yes. Context and intent matter.

"Almost nobody would think it acceptable to drive recklessly on their commute
home, but somehow ambulance drivers get to run red lights and exceed the speed
limit?"

~~~
dpark
I know you're making an analogy but comparing AdNauseum to ambulance drivers
is a bit of a stretch. One of these is saving lives. The other has no purpose
except to inflict damage on ad networks. Aside from damaging ad networks, it
also actively harms site owners by increasing the risk of them getting blocked
from the ad networks that fund their work.

I don't see a lot of merit in AdNauseum. It feels to me like a petty "fuck
you" response from people who don't like ads.

~~~
paulmd
The purpose isn't to inflict damage on ad networks, it's to make you more
difficult to track by burying your signal in a bunch of noise.

Let's take another, more similar analogy: some secure messaging programs are
designed to resist network analysis, which invariably involves sending some
kind of "noise" to clients whom you are not actively communicating with, to
mask your actual communication. Depending on your point of view, you could
frame that as an "attack on your ISP" \- after all, aren't you sending
unnecessary junk traffic? This is the same thing, except for the web instead
of messaging.

In general though, not picking on you in particular: I really see _a lot_ of
nerdfolk who don't understand that intent and context do matter. I see it
particularly often in legal contexts where people think they've figured out
one weird trick to escape the law. Like, I don't know, people who think that
they can claim they forgot the password to an encrypted system they use on a
daily basis, and the judge is just a computer who will say "oh no I am
defeated, beep boop", instead of a human being who will think about whether
that's reasonable and throw them in jail for contempt.

It would be wildly unreasonable to think that AdNausium is a click-farming
scheme, or a DDOS attempt, or anything of the like. Context does matter.

Also, if some of your clients actually using your primary "features" (clicking
your ads after they load a page) is a problem for you, it's hardly their
fault. By all means feel free to discontinue serving them ads if you don't
like it.

~~~
dpark
Your ISP example doesn't work because it's not about the "junk traffic".
Sending "junk" to your ISP wastes a little bit of bandwidth but doesn't
meaningfully damage their business model (might make them money depending on
the pricing model). The goal of this plugin is literally to destroy most of
the value that ad networks provide (namely targeted advertising). This doesn't
simply remove a user from advertising networks dataset (like an ad blocker)
but poisons the dataset. This harms ad networks and everyone who relies on
them to fund their work.

Blocking users who run AdNauseum does seem entirely appropriate to me.
Blocking the plugin from Chrome also seems appropriate to me.

------
inlined
Disclaimer: I'm a Google employee, though I have no inside knowledge about
this case at all.

> Do not create an extension that requires users to accept bundles of
> unrelated functionality, such as an email notifier and a news headline
> aggregator

It sounds like they may have just requested oddly broad permissions. Google
really cares about privacy. They really care about consent fatigue from
unnecessary permissions. Is it possible this is just an effort to rein in
unnecessary permissions & the app will be reinstated after the fat is trimmed?

~~~
u_wot_m8
>Google really cares about privacy

Is this a joke? Considering Google is a glorified data mining company I'm
going to have to disagree

~~~
Arnt
Marketing to friends of your existing customers is a natural goal, right? And
Google has that data for maybe half of humanity, in its gmail archive. A
highly saleable commodity. But try to make Google sell you either that gmail
contact data or anything equivalent.

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soared
Relevant - Someone posted a show hn for [1] but it was never released or
updated.

[https://hello-kill.github.io/](https://hello-kill.github.io/)

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michaelbuckbee
There's a real disconnect in behavior and branding here.

Consider if this extension did exactly the same thing, but was called "Ad
Click Faker" and was used by those defrauding companies and sites. That
doesn't seem like a positive thing, so I'm not sure why AdNauseum should be
either.

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mayneack
Is that actually defrauding or just not what the ad companies had in mind? Do
the ToS of websites ban such a thing?

If I don't care about ad networks wasting money (I don't), why should I care?

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problems
Is there any interest level in a Frida script or similar that would fully
bypass Google's extension signing so you could load this without the nag into
official Chrome?

Seems like it might be an interesting little reverse engineering project.

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chenshuiluke
Now I'll be testing this out in firefox. Thanks, lol

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zelon88
So "Don't be evil" must apply only to paying customers.

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teddyh
Google is too big to have customers.

