
Google will require proof of identity from all advertisers - doener
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/business/media/google-advertising.html
======
mediascreen
Every time I sign up for a service using our company card, with our company
address and company email I feel like I'm pretty open about who the buyer is.

Wouldn't a some kind of certified bank card be an even better proof of
corporate identity than a copy of someones ID?

IDs needs to be verified against articles of incorporation. For larger
companies it will definitely be a hassle to get the CFO to submit their proof
of identity for a purchase that is normally delegated way down in the
organisation.

~~~
xhkkffbf
Okay. Let's say I set up another web site and insist upon these documents. Now
I can impersonate you.

How long until we see people signing up for Google ads using someone else's
passport, W9 and what not?

This won't last very long.

~~~
bottle2
> Now I can impersonate you.

Or you could just use Edward Snowden's passport, or any of the other thousands
of people's IDs that have been compromised.

[https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5441386/ethical-
hacking-o...](https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5441386/ethical-hacking-
organization-website-defaced-with-snowden-passport)

------
number6
This wasn't the case already? I could have run a controversial ad to ruin
someone's name?

~~~
ggggtez
You could have. And that would have been a crime.

But contrary to popular opinion, tech companies are not a branch of the police
force. So they have no obligation to help the police prosecute people without
a warrant.

~~~
slg
>So they have no _legal_ obligation to help the police prosecute people
without a warrant.

FTFY. They may not have a legal obligation to help prevent or prosecute
crimes, but there is definitely a moral obligation to not knowingly allow your
product to become an easy accessory to crime. Lots of tech companies abdicate
that moral responsibility.

~~~
Nasrudith
Some propose that but in practice that requirement isn't sane. Carmakers can't
stop their cars from being used to run people down and the [[
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit)
Evil Bit]] was a joke. Many downright reject the "permission first/absolutr
safety" standard as harmful and impossible.

~~~
skavi
> Carmakers can't stop their cars from being used to run people down

The technology definitely exists to limit this, and many car companies already
offer such safety features.

------
paulpauper
>The names of the companies or people behind ads, as well as their countries
of origin, will begin appearing on Google ads this summer, starting with
several thousand advertisers a month in the United States before expanding
worldwide. The measure, which could take years to implement, is designed as a
defense against businesses and individuals who misrepresent themselves in paid
online promotions, Google said.

lol so a tiny crypto exchange can req. ID docs but a huge trillion dollar
company will take years>

~~~
katmannthree
A tiny crypto exchange is probably in a position where they can easily get
existing employees to manually verify the documents without a significant
impact on their business.

In addition to needing to verify orders of magnitude more entities, google
likely has many layers of both human and technical abstraction to deal with.

~~~
elliekelly
This isn’t new technology by any stretch of the imagination. Banks have been
required to do some version of this since the 70s. I wouldn’t buy this excuse
coming from the management and technology clusterfuck that is Wells Fargo and
I certainly wouldn’t buy it from Google.

~~~
judge2020
Yet there has never been a global bank that supports verifying identities in
almost every country.

~~~
elliekelly
Every bank in the US supports verifying identities in every country whether or
not they have global operations. Your friendly neighborhood credit union can
verify foreign identities. The only exception might be for
individuals/entities in places like North Korea or Syria where it doesn’t make
sense to bother with individual verification because their location alone
prohibits an account.

------
zozbot234
Previously discussed:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22955606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22955606)

------
dclusin
This will probably be about as effective as requiring ID cards has been to
combat underage drinking.

~~~
seibelj
This is like “Know Your Customer” (KYC) rules required by banks and financial
companies. So many online providers ask for it, and it’s so stupidly easy to
bypass through stolen documents it’s meaningless. I’ve even seen customers
setup booths where they pay people in slums for their documents and go through
a “live” KYC in-app process to generate more accounts.

Security Theater, just like everything.

~~~
perl4ever
What's your argument for why it's security theater in the context of banks?

It would be an obvious self-serving thing to say, for anyone opposed to
similar regulation in other industries, but is it true?

Saying a system isn't perfect isn't the same as saying it has little effect
overall.

If the banking system wasn't well controlled, why would people complain so
bitterly and frequently about the effect of sanctions?

------
qwerty456127
I bet this isn't going to help. Scams and misleading ads will persist.

------
guug
How will google verify this proof of identity?

------
buboard
Congratulations, you just created a secondary market

------
qwertox
Good time to buy some Facebook stock then.

------
throwaway122378
Add your name, address, signature, hair/eye color, picture, and dob to
Google’s database. When will this stop

------
foo7483838
This is Google shifting legal responsibility from itself so it can run
political ads without legal actions etc.

------
Igelau
Prediction: It'll be surprisingly difficult for Mom and Pop to provide
sufficient proof of identity and surprisingly easy for mega corporations to do
so. There will be a way to report suspected abusers that heavily skews in this
direction. It'll basically be like IP enforcement on YouTube.

~~~
coffeefirst
Not likely, but the problem requires context that Google isn't going to share.

In the past few years we've seen bad actors basically automate their process.
They expect to be banned. They spin up an account, run scams and malware, get
blacklisted, rinse and repeat with a new domain, account, and just enough
changes to beat the automated filters within an hour later.

What this does is add a ton of friction to that game. It doesn't even have to
be perfect to make a huge difference, it just needs to be difficult to rotate
at scale.

------
LanceH
The government shouldn't lean on a company to throw barriers in the way of
speech. I really don't care what people want to pay to say, even if it is the
horrible "fake news" which some seem to think is a new invention.

Why does anyone need to know who paid for all advertising?

~~~
jliptzin
Yea I kind of agree. The antidote to fake news should be an educated
population, not banning fake news.

~~~
SamReidHughes
We already have an educated population.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
It that were true "math class is tough" Barbie would never have existed.

~~~
SamReidHughes
That’s not a problem with education, people are just stupid.

------
tehjoker
There's only one sure way to eliminate fraud in advertising: stop advertising.
Google is attempting to make it more difficult for malefactors to use its
systems, but this disregards the fact that advertising is not a socially
beneficial activity and all advertising is an attempt to psychologically
manipulate the public.

Therefore, a harm reduction justification is insufficient as it presumes there
is some benefit worth the harms being introduced. In fact, there is no benefit
and Google is only reducing harm slightly.

~~~
larrysalibra
> the fact that advertising is not a socially beneficial activity and all
> advertising is an attempt to psychologically manipulate the public

That's not a fact, that's your opinion. Advertising is a form of communication
and like most communication, the person originating the communication often
has a goal or desired outcome in mind. That you or me might not like their
goals or the message that they communicate doesn't mean that no one finds it
valuable, nor does it mean that we should ban all communication.

~~~
carapace
> Advertising is a form of communication and like most communication, the
> person originating the communication often has a goal or desired outcome in
> mind.

So what? It's still "an attempt to psychologically manipulate the public".
Advertising is adversarial, it's _fundamentally_ bullshit.

Leela : Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?"

Fry : Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in
magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and
t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.

How is that "a socially beneficial activity"?

~~~
joshuamorton
> So what? It's still "an attempt to psychologically manipulate the public".
> Advertising is adversarial

So is what you just wrote. Should we ban discussion on HN because it is (or
can be) adversarial?

~~~
Nextgrid
HN has balanced discussions because of the voting system, moderators (banning
voting rings and spammers) and that anyone can voice their counter-arguments.

Advertising on the other hand is one-sided. If there was a universal ad
platform where people could vote on ads (where overly negative feedback would
get the ad taken down) and comment below them then it wouldn’t be that much of
a problem.

Finally HN is something you choose to participate in in your own time.
Advertising doesn’t give you a choice on whether you want to see it.

~~~
joshuamorton
> Advertising on the other hand is one-sided.

Most ad platforms allow anyone to submit an add. Most add platforms are
moderated.

> Advertising doesn’t give you a choice on whether you want to see it.

Of course it does. When I'm reading a book I don't see advertisements. They
aren't beamed into my brain, they're the price of admission for certain
services I gain value from

~~~
Nextgrid
> Most ad platforms allow anyone to submit an add

I can submit another ad but I can't make it appear right below the previous ad
I would like to "comment" on.

> Most add platforms are moderated

What about fake technical support numbers, or the variety of scams/quack
products on Facebook that make impossible claims and prey on the
vulnerable/stupid?

> When I'm reading a book I don't see advertisements

When I take public transport I see ads regardless. Same applies to a lot of
services that are near-essential nowadays. Certain _government agencies_ sell
your details to spam operations (also a certain form of advertising) and you
can't opt out. Most commercial products include spyware which track you and
rat you out to ad platforms regardless of whether you even see any ads
directly.

~~~
joshuamorton
So should we ban restaraunts from having signs out front?

~~~
Nextgrid
As far as I know most locations have rules on what a sign can look like and
what it can do. I don't think it would be legal to have a sign with a powerful
strobe lamp, one that shoots lasers in people's eyes to attract their
attention or one that blasts loud music (which would be the equivalent of
flashy, distracting ads that we see on the web).

Also with a restaurant sign there's a business behind it with someone that can
be held accountable for it. If you see an obvious scam or a fraudulent service
advertised you can complain to them or the authorities and get it shut down.
With online ads they can be purchased either completely anonymously (maybe
even with a stolen credit card) or by a shell company somewhere on the other
side of the world where you would have no recourse.

~~~
joshuamorton
> As far as I know most locations have rules on what a sign can look like and
> what it can do. I don't think it would be legal to have a sign with a
> powerful strobe lamp, one that shoots lasers in people's eyes to attract
> their attention or one that blasts loud music

Most ad groups have regulations on what ads can and cannot do.

> With online ads they can be purchased either completely anonymously (maybe
> even with a stolen credit card) or by a shell company somewhere on the other
> side of the world where you would have no recourse.

Check the thread you're in. It's about an ad network addressing this specific
problem.

~~~
Nextgrid
> Most ad groups have regulations on what ads can and cannot do.

How do you explain Facebook ads for scams that claim price X but actually
hammer your payment cards with multiple X * 10 charges until it declines? A
friend got caught by that, we ended up doing a chargeback but Facebook didn't
get punished in any way despite their complicity in this fraud.

How do you explain tech support scam ads?

How do you explain "chumboxes" like Outbrain/Taboola as in here:
[https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-
intern...](https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-
chum/) (the image URLs are broken, you need to manually get the image's URLs,
change the protocol to HTTPS and open the resulting link to see them).

Maybe some ad groups have internal regulations, but I as a user have no
control of which ad networks I'm exposed to. On the other hand, in the street,
_all_ businesses have to comply with local laws and given that I don't see
scam tech support banners or credit card scams advertised on storefronts I
guess the laws are working, and if they aren't, laws can be amended if there's
enough public support for it (some locations completely banned billboards for
example).

> Check the thread you're in. It's about an ad network addressing this
> specific problem.

"Google will suspend the accounts of advertisers that do not provide proof of
identity, including W9 forms, passports and other personal identification and
business incorporation files"

Seems like a pretty low bar to clear with either forged documents (again,
someone already breaking the law with scam or spam ads isn't going to be
deterred by this), paying vulnerable people in a slum for scans of their
passports or just using a string of shell companies to muddy the trail.

~~~
joshuamorton
Fraud is a hard problem. It's fairly easy to find individual examples of
malfeasance, the relevant question is what percentage of online ads are scams,
compared to ads in other media.

I'll also note that you're now no longer arguing that advertisements are
unethical, but that online advertisements are unethical, and not because
they're "an attempt to psychologically manipulate the public" as was
originally stated, or even because, as you originally claimed "Advertising
doesn’t give you a choice on whether you want to see it."

We've moved the goalposts quite a bit. And I'm not interested in an in the
weeds argument about the challenges of online fraud prevention. It won't be
fruitful for anyone. I've proven my original point: you don't line online
advertisements (and that's OK!), but you also don't have a clear reason that
they're uniquely different than any other form of advertising, and you don't
believe that advertising, in general, is unethical.

