19 ms·

No More Deceptive Download Buttons

706 points by r721 11y ago

jjp 11y ago
So if a site is using Adsense and doesn't require all ads are reviewed then as site owners appears we run the risk of another part of Google telling visitors that the site is malicious. Hope that the site owner tooling referred to is good enough that it can identify the advert, at worst the network otherwise only option would be to remove Adsense code.
- tobltobs 11y ago
  I tried to manually review all ads. But my experience was that this is not possible with the given tools. It would take hours per day.
lexicality 11y ago
Perhaps now that Google has taken steps to block websites that display these ads, Google should take steps to stop accepting these ads onto their network in the first place. Most of the time when I see those DOWNLOAD/PLAY buttons, they're hosted on doubleclick.
- chillydawg 11y ago
  Because this way they get to charge for the ad and then also not let their users get suckered. They win both ways.
  - Pharaoh2 11y ago
    Google doesn't charge for ads, it charges for impressions. If you user doesn't seem it, google doesn't get paid. Get your facts straight.
- Zarel 11y ago
  I remember a few years ago AdSense was showing a lot of fake Download buttons (and users would complain about it). I haven't seen them recently, though, so I hope that means they've fixed that problem.
  - mc808 11y ago
    I just checked and the download page on getpaint.net still has a deceptive "Start Download" AdSense ad. That site came to mind because, a few months ago, I tried to be charitable and disabled ad blocking for a few days. That was the site where I decided enough was enough and started blocking again.
    - cableshaft 11y ago
      I just went there and saw a fake start download button, but it was with the 'AdChoices' network, not AdSense. EDIT: I guess AdSense is involved with AdChoices somehow. My mistake.
      - cbr 11y ago
        Pretty sure it's an AdSense ad: http://imgur.com/OBy1PFR http://imgur.com/OBy1PFR The AdChoices icon is used by many ad networks, not just Google's, to indicate that there's per-user targeting happening. [1] But if you click on that "AdChoices" button and you get an AdSense help page. [1] http://www.youradchoices.com/faq.aspx http://www.youradchoices.com/faq.aspx
        acqq 11y ago
        When I click the > I get https://support.google.com/adsense https://support.google.com/adsense . The link from the ad is to https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net I don't see how it can't be a Google-sold ad.
      - mc808 11y ago
        I'm not too familiar with AdSense vs. DoubleClick vs. AdChoices, but when I hover the ad it shows a link to DoubleClick, the little triangle icon points to an AdSense support page, and the JavaScript to load the ad comes from googlesyndication.com. From what I understand, that all points to it being an AdSense ad. I suspect the reason that kind of ad is allowed (despite being deceptive IMHO) is that it's not just a download link. It also indicates that it's an ad for a driver update site (which makes it even shadier to my eye, but probably not violating any policies).
- MattBearman 11y ago
  I was going to say exactly the same thing. Blocking/warning about them at the browser level is a great move, especially as it will also work for ads not served by Google. But they should also be working to stop these ads getting published on their network as well.
  - tarpherder 11y ago
    But that is a more direct threat to their revenue stream so of course not :).
- raverbashing 11y ago
  There should be an easy way to flag an ad for inappropriate behaviour (by the user seeing it)
  - chriswarbo 11y ago
    How long would it take before fake "Flag this ad" buttons start appearing on ads?
    - Flimm 11y ago
      The little X button in the top right corner of Google display ads already performs this function, no?
      - kalkin 11y ago
        I tried to flag a deceptive "Start Download" ad of this kind by clicking on this button a few days ago (which appeared on a site I run, annoyingly). The form I was required to fill out needed me to say where the link in the ad took me. So I"m supposed to click on the link in an ad which is pretty plainly attempting to install some kind of malware, in order to be able to report it? I'm supposed to either be 100% confident there's no vulnerability in my browser, or set up some kind of VM to test with, just in order to report a single, obviously malicious ad?
        infogulch 11y ago
        I just tried it on the getpaint.net site (mentioned elsewhere itt) and it only had an option box set with three options: inappropriate, repetitive, irrelevant. But you could just right click and copy the ad link. The link would point to the ad network (e.g. googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk), but it would be better than nothing. Also, many ads include a domain, sometimes in a tooltip, and usually just the tld, but again, better than nothing.
- developer2 11y ago
  I'm not at all against this move from Google - it is good sense. However, to play Devil's advocate, what are the odds this was pushed down by the MPAA/RIAA or similar? This policy more or less directly targets sites that offer free online streaming or torrent downloads of Movies/TV/Music. The sites that wind up with these deceptive ads are typically sites that provide copyrighted content to their users. Again, this is not a bad move. But I'm curious about the true motivations. If I were the MPAA, and trying to shut down the revenue stream of sites offering free streaming and torrents, this would be one of the ways to do it. That, or Google is simply sick of receiving takedown notices - and this is one method to take these sites out of their listings before even receiving the DMCA.
  - zeven7 11y ago
    Google doesn't make any attempts to pander to the MPAA/RIAA anymore. http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mpaas-attempt-to-revive-sopa.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mpaas-att...
  - tonylemesmer 11y ago
    Download button ads appear on websites providing useful utilities and in particular Minecraft content and add-ons. I'm having to educate my kids on what is and isn't a real download button. Its a pain in the arse. I would say it hasn't come from the MPAA or RIAA. These deceptive download buttons appear on a myriad of sites which are not related to streaming/torrenting.
  - FussyZeus 11y ago
    Actually when I saw the headline my first thought was sourceforge. You expect these kinds of deep web ads when perusing sites you know damn well are "less than legal" but I've seen them on a number of websites I wouldn't normally expect to, sourceforge being the worst offender in my experience.
  - witty_username 11y ago
    In my experience most free online streaming and torrent downloading websites have very small hard-to-find download buttons with a lot of fake "Download Now!" ads. So this would actually make torrenting easier.
- derefr 11y ago
  I'm not sure they need to. Google's approach here tackles the problem of these ads being created from an economic direction: if nobody is seeing these ads, they won't make any CPM money any more, so their creators will stop running them. That's a much more sensible approach than doing what you're suggesting—trying to catch specific instances of people doing something nefarious that makes them money. That just causes the people posting the ads to get more clever, such that it gets more and more costly to catch each instance. (That was helpful in the ReCAPTCHA case, since spammers were advancing computer vision techniques in the process. It's not a harnessable force in the general case.)
  - kuschku 11y ago
    It’s an approach that has many casualties, though.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    The point was made elsewhere, but I think you stated it most eloquently. Here's my question though: does it not benefit the user to enforce some minimum of deterrence through automated policing on the ad acceptance side? Yes, it's whack-a-mole, but so is SEO, and Google's continually tweaking that instead of giving up. Based on the current rudimentary techniques used by the advertisers (e.g. "DOWNLOAD!" buttons), even eliminating only such blatant examples would go a long way towards cleaning up deceptive ad's. And as you've noted... it's not like Google doesn't have access to advanced CV techniques and the computational infrastructure to run them...
    - mrtron 11y ago
      Google is trying quite hard to stop the download ads. The people running those ads are trying even harder. It has nothing to do with CV, it is not an engineering problem.
      - ethbro 11y ago
        > It has nothing to do with CV, it is not an engineering problem. Not sure what you mean by this, given that there's a human with eyeballs on the other end of the bad ad and a limited number of keywords to trick that human into undesirable actions (virus,error,infected,download,update,install). CV is exactly the solution you'd want to use for a first-pass categorization, given that's the pathway by which the ads communicate with users.
- makomk 11y ago
  It'll be interesting to see if they block people from visiting sites that use doubleclick for ads, or if this is just an excuse for blocking sites that use competing ad providers.
- taoufix 11y ago
  Admob too serves similar Ads: "Your phone is infected, click here to install Clean Master..."
rplnt 11y ago
I wonder if those ads that push you to install certain product with half-truths and lies are considered deceptive as well. You know, "Install Chrome for better experience".
bjackman 11y ago
Interesting that when I read "these buttons", I thought " which buttons?" because my brain's spam filter initially made them invisible to me!
danr4 11y ago
This is really important. One step closer to killing ad tech companies who only make money off my grandma and little brother.
- afandian 11y ago
  You mean Google? I see a tonne of deceptive advertising propagated by Google's ad network.
  - danr4 11y ago
    No. I mean the companies whose sole business is to get you to download bundled malware, change your search engine, push ads to every site you browse using extensions etc. Source: I've worked at one of those.
    - afandian 11y ago
      Surely the companies that advertise via Google to try and deceive you to into clicking their download button or whatever fit the bill? And surely Google, by actively enabling them, is also part of the process. As stated elsewhere on this thread, if they can detect deceptive sites, they can detect deceptive adverts.
      - throwaway7767 11y ago
        So they implement detection, and remove these ads. The scummy advertisers then permutate their ads until they get past the detection and the game continues. We're getting pretty good at image classification, but I don't think that extends to maliciously crafted inputs.
        afandian 11y ago
        That or they manually verify each ad submission. If that violates their business model of high-volume low-value automated processes (and it obviously does) then you have to take account of that when decide how you view company. Automation and the inability to verify at the scale that they operate doesn't somehow absolve them.
whyleyc 11y ago
This is a joke right ? We run Adsense display ads on our site and have to spend significant time every day reviewing and blocking new ads which try to use these deceptive practices. Since Google clearly has the tech to detect this they should be implementing it at source on the advertisers (malvertisers). Instead they are pushing this down to the publishers and hitting them with penalties. It's a clever ploy in some ways - Google gets the revenue from the ads and also the kudos from Joe Public for "being on the side of the consumer".
- Pharaoh2 11y ago
  Google doesn't charge for ads, it charges for impressions. If you user doesn't seem it, google doesn't get paid. It also seems like a very different tech than trying to determine what an ad script will actually show a user. So it's not easy as if they can do A they can do B. Still doesn't excuse the fact that they should be doing their best to block those kind of ads in their ad network.
  - oliwarner 11y ago
    FWIW, "impression" means "request". Who knows what the user saw. Google AdSense is pay-per-click (or some algorithm, based on clicks against and the subject matter's value). In the context of adware rubbish, we are probably talking about AdSense. So no, Google doesn't pay per impression. DoubleClick (part of Google for some time) may still offer an impression-based product. My experience of them a few years ago was that they'd negotiate on anything if you have enough traffic to make it worth their time.
    - Pharaoh2 11y ago
      Are you talking about google paying the website for each click/impression or are you talking about advertisers paying google for each click/impression. Both are termed under impressions (CPM or PPM). And in both cases google loses money in rolling out this feature.
- blubb-fish 11y ago
  yes, yes and yes ...
chinathrow 11y ago
More censorship... no thanks.
mschuster91 11y ago
Sourceforge, download.cnet.com and friends won't like this... also many of the streaming/OCH sites will be affected.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  Imagine the fit the various torrent sites will throw about it.
Piskvorrr 11y ago
"You may have encountered social engineering in a deceptive download button, or an image ad that falsely claims your system is out of date." Weeeellll...I see 99% of these in Android in-app ads. So - a) this should be the end of it, or b) someone is being a bit hypocritical here. I sure hope for the former.
runn1ng 11y ago
I will take programs like this seriously when Google stops bundling Chrome installer with unrelated software like Adobe Flash.
- mediumdeviation 11y ago
  Adobe Flash is a browser plugin. Chrome is a browser. How are they unrelated?
  - runn1ng 11y ago
    If you install Adobe Flash plugin for a different browser, Chrome gets bundled with it. Even if you don't want Chrome.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    Chrome doesn't use/work with the Flash browser plugin.
- jdoliner 11y ago
  Flash is unrelated to a web browser? I mean I hate flash as much as the next guy... but how can Flash not be related to a browser?
  - runn1ng 11y ago
    You want to install Flash for Firefox, it will install Chrome by default.
    - joepvd 11y ago
      I did not install flash in FF, and I do not miss a thing. Sometimes there is this warning that not all content could be displayed, but I would not have a clue what functionality is missing.
jdoliner 11y ago
This is really awesome. I was so excited I actually clicked the fake download buttons to try to install it. So when does this role out?
- zodPod 11y ago
  I'm so glad that I'm not the only one! haha
cabirum 11y ago
Google should detect and block the buttons, not display full-screen warnings. What next? "This site contains controversial views"? Or "Politically incorrect website ahead"?
- RansomTime 11y ago
  Google can't block elements on sites it does not control. Warning users of phishing and warning users of speech that it finds objectionable are 2 different things entirely.
  - cabirum 11y ago
    A deceptive button does not equal phishing. It just might (and most often does) open a non-malicious popup with some ad. (non-malicious in a sense it won't install ransomware to your PC) And of course Google can easily integrate it's own ad blocker in Chrome if it chooses so.
  - gergles 11y ago
    It can in the browser they control...
- bdcravens 11y ago
  They've already said they'll start shaming non-https sites.
tdkl 11y ago
I hope they'll include a "Stop the nanny" flag in chrome://flags as well. I mean you can't even change the new tab page to a custom .html, without Chrome nagging you at every launch if the settings are correct. If you make a manifest.json and load as an unpacked extension, it will moan about that. FFS, I know what you're trying to do with Joe/Jane Noob, but at least give me something to skip that if I know what I'm doing. [edit] This wouldn't be even needed if new tab page was customizable. Now it it's just a Google billboard.
- derefr 11y ago
  The hard part here is that, wherever you'd decide to persist a "don't bug me any more about this" flag, malware could also potentially write that same flag to that same place. For example, Windows UAC is frequently set to the "don't bug me about this, just auto-elevate" setting by malware.
  - mschuster91 11y ago
    > The hard part here is that, wherever you'd decide to persist a "don't bug me any more about this" flag, Build a new binary - offer users to install a "developer" build of Chrome which is exactly the same as the mainstream "release" build, except it allows disabling the protections.
    - derefr 11y ago
      You don't actually have to go that far; there are plenty of Chrome settings controlled by command-line options, and that's usually safe enough—it's actually really hard for malware to "sneak in" command-line options (if the user is a regular user, while the the Chrome shortcuts in the Start Menu et al were installed under elevation, which is the usual case.) There's a command-line option to Chrome that entirely disables the sandboxing protections, for instance. My distinction was just that there's absolutely no way to have a UI-based mechanism for disabling nags, since behind any UI is a persisted flag. If you're up for editing your shortcuts to add command-line options, that's fine.
oliv__ 11y ago
I know these fake ads all suck and everyone hates them but somehow getting rid of them feels like cutting off a little piece of what makes the web the web. I kinda like this darker, more free-for-all, wild wild west side of the Internet.
- sergiotapia 11y ago
  Me too man, I remember the internet back then where everything was unique and not a cookie-cutter bootstrap boilterplate. Want a nostalgia trip? Download Opera (one of the early versions) - it'll pluck at your heart strings and make you yearn for times when you had more personal responsibility and Google wasn't there to infect everything with it's nanny browser. Hell, even Firefox the last bastion of Freedom on the web, is following Chrome.
  - fixermark 11y ago
    Mostly because there's more benefit to be gained in making the web usable by non-experts than in preserving the current status quo. There's a reason the Wild West didn't stay wild.
    - Piskvorrr 11y ago
      This. More specifically, the Wild West got wild for a few years - during a massive population influx - while the entire system was unstable (which also means interesting, in most senses of the word). The metaphor leaks, but is close enough.
    - sergiotapia 11y ago
      I agree, but it still sucks that it seems you're being sold something at every turn. Websites are no longer there, just to be there. It's always about the upsell or agenda.
      - cableshaft 11y ago
        That's one reason why I'm a little annoyed personal websites went mostly the way of the Dodo and you can only expect friends to check things out if you give them direct links to some trusted site from a site they use all the time, like a link to a Youtube video from Facebook, or your Medium or Tumblr entry from Twitter. I still like designing personal websites, but it seems like a waste of time now.
userbinator 11y ago
As I write this, the ranking of the comments here is... strange. Those who see this as being yet another way of Google using their power to manipulate what people see on the Internet are being heavily downvoted, while those agreeing with the practice are not? That doesn't feel like HN to me. I'm in the former group. This mollycoddling is just going to lead to more users who can't decide for themselves whether something is suspicious or not and are thus easier to deceive, which might be exactly what Google wants, but I certainly do not think it is good for the Web as a whole (or even society in general.) Being able to make these sorts of decisions of trust is an important part of growing up in general, and I'd even say "finding the right download button" could be considered a sort of right of passage to being an effective user of the Web, and not just a consumer.
- Profan 11y ago
  You can't seriously be saying that people potentially running into malware because they couldn't figure out with download button was the real one is reasonable?
  - userbinator 11y ago
    You can't seriously be saying that not being able to figure out which download button is the right one is reasonable? With experience, it's extremely easy to find the real one. - It's usually smaller and less prominent than the fake ones. - Mousing over it doesn't show a huge long URL to some external domain that sounds ad-like. Using adblock probably gets rid of a lot of the fake ones too, but the general principle here is if it looks too good/easy to be true, it probably is. The buttons that seem really enticing are the ones you don't want to click, and it's that odd, not-very-attractive one that you want.
- Piskvorrr 11y ago
  As an experienced user, when I'm looking for some semi-obscure Windows program, I still do have problems distinguishing legit download links from this. Perhaps I'm too used to the radical method "just select what you want from the repository, and it will be installed automagically;" in other words, one of the issues here is nonexistent install management in Windows (party like it's 1998!), forcing users to run this gauntlet (MSI? Puh-leeze).
fiatjaf 11y ago
The first thing they should do is harshly penalize websites with a lot of ads in their search results.
tobltobs 11y ago
This blog post is not talking about those Adsense Download buttons, is it?
caleblloyd 11y ago
Awe man guess I can't use chrome to browse The Pirate Bay anymore...
- throwaway7767 11y ago
  > Awe man guess I can't use chrome to browse The Pirate Bay anymore... More likely, TPB stops running these particular shady ads, because chrome is such a popular browser.
kbart 11y ago
It's a laudable initiative to protect average Joe from himself, but I don't feel like Google (or any other company) deciding for me what is dangerous. They should at least provide this feature as an opt-out option. Still, better option would be to educate more people of ad and script blockers.
- lallysingh 11y ago
  https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020?hl=en There's been a setting for this stuff forever.
joosters 11y ago
So safe browsing is now blocking pages where the adverts are "often not distinguishable from the rest of the page"? IMO that covers all of Google's search result pages. Most users don't seem to realise that the top results are paid advertising...
- username223 11y ago
  Came here to say this. Most of their above-the-fold "results" are either ads or SEO-ed junk probably full of Google ads. More broadly, pretending to protect against social engineering is a joke. They won't catch anything other than the most obvious stuff, and they will also block some stuff that many people won't want blocked. Does this feature block Java downloads containing the Ask toolbar? Should it?
- Karunamon 11y ago
  Here's a google SERP for "insurance": http://imgur.com/VUqwyPq http://imgur.com/VUqwyPq Are you saying the bright "ad" lozenge next to the paid results isn't explicit enough? And anyways, users don't go out of their way to avoid clicking on ads unless the ads are utter crap. Google's whole business is to make the ads relevant to the search and the user, so who's to say the ad isn't actually a relevant result?
  - woobar 11y ago
    >the bright "ad" lozenge next to the paid results isn't explicit enough Yes, it is not explicit enough. The tiny yellow box is just a noise present on every search page. As any noise it will be ignored. Especially when everything else in these ads tries to look exactly as a valid search result.
    - 0xffff2 11y ago
      So what should Google do then? If a "tiny yellow box" is just noise, isn't a larger yellow box just more noise?
      - 11y ago
FussyZeus 11y ago
There's an unexpectedly large number of commenters who seem to think that this falls under free speech. Do I need to explain that the crap these ads usually download when clicked is responsible for a ton of support calls, many of which go to innocent kids on weekends just trying to unwind from school? :) I'm kidding of course but seriously comparing blocking these buttons and deceptive elements is not censorship, it's Google saying to these publishers that if they don't get their shit together, that they will dissuade traffic from visiting their sites. The only way to get the attention of bigger publishing companies is to grab them by the revenue stream, you all know this.
tempodox 11y ago
Does that mean they're taking down SourceForge?
- yuhong 11y ago
  It just got sold to BIZX, which I think promised to stop some of the practices.
TheRealmccoy 11y ago
Also, ideally Google should implement this within their search algorithm itself, by punishing the sites which indulge in such practices by pushing their search results much further away.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- cableshaft 11y ago
  First of all, it's only through their browser. There are alternative browsers you can use. And they already filter search results, quite extensively.
iwillreply 11y ago
"Pretend to act, or look and feel, like a trusted entity — like your own device or browser, or the website itself." This is a broad statement. Taken at face value, this covers all native advertising - with articles/images/videos/thumbnails/etc intended to fit in with the content of the site/app.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  If we can get rid of native advertising too, I'm all for it. Native advertising is a special kind of evil.
ChrisNorstrom 11y ago
Too late google. I already intsalled ad blocker on every computer in the house years ago because my parents would accidentally click "play" or "download" in deceptive ads.
torgoguys 11y ago
I'm surprised of the negativity towards this action, but I guess I shouldn't be. A lot of you are in a very different situation than me and this will affect you directly. However, warning people away from being potentially tricked by these deceptive ads is a very good thing. Tons of sites out there that turn a blind eye to such ads and that's bad. Yes, there will be some unfortunate pain for sites that responsibly attempt to block these ads as they come up. Assuming the blog post is correct and Google has implemented this correctly, it should be minimal for those sorts of folks since they claim the penalty will only occur if users are consistently getting social engineering ads. (I suspect Google will ratchet up the rate over time though, assuming these ads become less common as a result of this and similar efforts). EDIT: See below. I'm convinced and with y'all now. Google--this is a step in the right direction and I support this action, but you do need to get your own house in order too!
- protomyth 11y ago
  > I'm surprised of the negativity towards this action Its pretty basic. A lot of people are not happy that Google is serving these ads that they are telling you they will stop at the browser-level with a warning that makes the site owner look guilty. They want Google's Ad network to stop serving the ads in the first place.
  - torgoguys 11y ago
    Thanks for that. So can anyone point me to an ad served by Google that is as bad as the examples in the blog post? I thought Google had previously cracked down on such ads from the serving side too, although less deceptive ones were still allowed, no? I'm happy to be better informed!
    - infogulch 11y ago
      getpaint.net is mentioned elsewhere itt. Perhaps not quite as bad, but still at least mildly deceptive.
      - 11y ago
mcintyre1994 11y ago
Despite all the legal attacks in the UK and elsewhere, this is probably the biggest blow to piracy sites so far. When one gets taken down another spins up, but if you turn your adblocker off they all have these awful adverts.
- undefined0 11y ago
  For organic traffic pirate sites, the biggest blow was Google's algorithm change. For websites which used a freemium model, the biggest blow was PayPal, Visa and Mastercard banning file sharing websites from using them. Todays announcement was merely a nail in the coffin for those sites.
rundmc 11y ago
Amazing idea. It will save so many people form mal-links but even sophisticated users from trying to figure out which is the real "download" button
jcfrei 11y ago
So who decides what to flag? Is google analyzing the behavior of chrome users and then automatically flags websites? Or can users flag websites? I disabled "Automatically report details of possible security incidents to Google" and "Protect you and your device from dangerous sites" in the settings, will my chrome browser still report these websites (in case it ever did)?
dfar1 11y ago
It's about time google crack down on these ads. The download button is just one of the many tactics. Any ads that show a guy with biceps three times the size of his head should also be banned. Yahoo is infested with these "sponsored" ads, and pretty much any other site that lives on ads revenue only.
- infogulch 11y ago
  Pretend to act, or look and feel, like a trusted entity — like your own device or browser, or the website itself. These are deceptive tactics, intended to confuse and trick. What you describe is annoying and perhaps exploitative of humans desires, but in the end no different from normal advertising and far less evil than the ads described in the quote above. You want a full ad-blocker. Perhaps you're already using one and want to justify it.
astral303 11y ago
This is a great move. Computers are extremely difficult and deceptive for those who can't remember the myriad of rules and gotchas. What we really need is an open pledge of non-deceptiveness, give it a catchy name, and then advertise sites as conforming to it.
bpg_92 11y ago
Welp, hopefully they will make it optional and we can turn it off.
dheera 11y ago
This "Google Safe Browsing" initiative seriously worries me. It's effectively some unknown, mysterious, un-contactable set of AI algorithms/people/who knows what controlling the internet because Google owns everyone's browser. One of my websites got tagged as "Dangerous" and having "harmful programs" despite having nothing of the sort. My guess is a silly hiccup of their neural network algorithms. And I have absolutely nobody I can contact about the issue to get an explanation. They just effectively killed the site in one fell swoop.
- ryanlol 11y ago
  As with most things in this world, you could sue them.
  - dheera 11y ago
    It wasn't a major or revenue-generating site, so I don't want to spend on legal fees. If it had been though, I would.
    - ryanlol 11y ago
      Yeah, I've experienced the same and it's really a pain in the ass. Apparently there's tons of orgs that can automatically add sites to that blacklist, I got abuse from some company saying there was a phishing page on my IP because it featured a login page and the text "Amazon" and suddenly chrome started showing alerts when I visited the IP. As with most of similar systems (spamhaus etc) the people running them are just as bad as the people they're trying to stop.
  - mtgx 11y ago
    How many of the sites that were illegitimately blocked can afford to sue Google? How many can afford to win against Google's top notch legal team?
    - ryanlol 11y ago
      The real question is "Is it worth it for google to send their legal team to some small claims court hearing instead of just unblocking the site?" And contrary to the popular belief, suing people really isn't that expensive if you've got the time to do it.
ksk 11y ago
I don't see the difference between "Buy this Pill to lose weight" and "Download this codec".
spdustin 11y ago
Here are some more proactive approaches that would support their desired perception of caring about the browsing safety of their users: * How about updating the radio buttons that appear when you "report this ad" to include "deceptive" as the reason for the report * DoubleClick (by Google) serves the majority of these "Download now" ads that I've seen on sites that cater to the general public. Don't let advertisers run these ads. Do. Not. Allow. Many of them have "start download" in the plain text of the ad unit, and others are easily found by a bit of OCR on an image ad unit. Please do not give me a Google-branded poncho (telling me how amazing it is with an infomercial about its revolutionary Dry Living Experience™) when you could patch the leaky roof to truly create a Dry Living Experience.
rackforms 11y ago
My AdWords account was suspended a few days ago because of, I presume at least, this: https://www.rackforms.com/rackforms-express-for-wordpress.php https://www.rackforms.com/rackforms-express-for-wordpress.ph... A popup in AdWords says I've violated "Unsupported content free desktop software". RackForms Express is a free version of my flagship product, that one actually being advertised. You're feelings may very well differ, but if I've clicked on a link, organic or ad, and I get offered a solution to the problem I was seeking an answer for, that seem like a pretty good deal. If nothing else, this differentiation may well be the difference between getting a sale or not. The appeal process is to fill out this form: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/contact/advertise_software_pol https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/contact/advertise_s..., but from my reading in Google's product forms this doesn't always work. If this fails, the end result will be to remove free software from the net. We're all for blocking those horrible "Download Firefox" ads, but this change, and the resulting aftermath, feels...I don't know, dangerous. If the end result is small companies like mine pulling valuable resources from the web, I think we all loose. Fingers crossed my appeal goes through.
flipp3r 11y ago
Let's put Google's Youtube behind a deceptive site screen immediately! http://i.imgur.com/cXf5dwJ.png http://i.imgur.com/cXf5dwJ.png
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Yup, here's another: https://plus.google.com/+JakeWeisz/posts/6YMTfeRw2jY https://plus.google.com/+JakeWeisz/posts/6YMTfeRw2jY
Osiris 11y ago
I hate using free hosted download services that some people use, especially on forums, because there are ads with download buttons and real download buttons and it's nearly impossible to tell which button needs to be clicked to initiate a download.
jlgaddis 11y ago
I hope they block Sourceforge and their deceptive "Download" buttons as well.
greggman 11y ago
Hmmm, I just went to google.com and typed "Chrome for Windows" Of the 10 links that appeared, at least 4 or 5 were for malware infected versions of Chrome. I followed the links, the download buttons on those pages are still shown. Maybe I misunderstood
dredmorbius 11y ago
Sounds good to me. I'd like to see Google take this one step further: author and publisher (as in advertising network) accountability. https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/Fitbdvdkw32 https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/Fitbdvdk... 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 repeated 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. If Google don't block ads, I will. Oh, wait, I already do that. But the rest of the Net is still catching up.
6stringmerc 11y ago
I tend to enjoy these type of announcements and discussions regarding Google, because it seems to remind the general population that while yes, Alphabet is a diversified technology powerhouse, at its core, its most primal competency is that of an advertising firm. A very successful advertising firm. Sort of like how Jerry Jones was a very successful oil business tycoon before diversifying his interests by way of purchasing the Dallas Cowboys and 'business-ing' it up to a multi-billion dollar brand. No oil, no Cowboys for Jerry. No ads, no self-driving cars for Google.

706 points by r721 11y ago

jjp 11y ago

So if a site is using Adsense and doesn't require all ads are reviewed then as site owners appears we run the risk of another part of Google telling visitors that the site is malicious. Hope that the site owner tooling referred to is good enough that it can identify the advert, at worst the network otherwise only option would be to remove Adsense code.

tobltobs 11y ago
I tried to manually review all ads. But my experience was that this is not possible with the given tools. It would take hours per day.

lexicality 11y ago

Perhaps now that Google has taken steps to block websites that display these ads, Google should take steps to stop accepting these ads onto their network in the first place. Most of the time when I see those DOWNLOAD/PLAY buttons, they're hosted on doubleclick.

chillydawg 11y ago
Because this way they get to charge for the ad and then also not let their users get suckered. They win both ways.
- Pharaoh2 11y ago
  Google doesn't charge for ads, it charges for impressions. If you user doesn't seem it, google doesn't get paid. Get your facts straight.
Zarel 11y ago
I remember a few years ago AdSense was showing a lot of fake Download buttons (and users would complain about it). I haven't seen them recently, though, so I hope that means they've fixed that problem.
- mc808 11y ago
  I just checked and the download page on getpaint.net still has a deceptive "Start Download" AdSense ad. That site came to mind because, a few months ago, I tried to be charitable and disabled ad blocking for a few days. That was the site where I decided enough was enough and started blocking again.
  - cableshaft 11y ago
    I just went there and saw a fake start download button, but it was with the 'AdChoices' network, not AdSense. EDIT: I guess AdSense is involved with AdChoices somehow. My mistake.
    - cbr 11y ago
      Pretty sure it's an AdSense ad: http://imgur.com/OBy1PFR http://imgur.com/OBy1PFR The AdChoices icon is used by many ad networks, not just Google's, to indicate that there's per-user targeting happening. [1] But if you click on that "AdChoices" button and you get an AdSense help page. [1] http://www.youradchoices.com/faq.aspx http://www.youradchoices.com/faq.aspx
      - acqq 11y ago
        When I click the > I get https://support.google.com/adsense https://support.google.com/adsense . The link from the ad is to https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net I don't see how it can't be a Google-sold ad.
    - mc808 11y ago
      I'm not too familiar with AdSense vs. DoubleClick vs. AdChoices, but when I hover the ad it shows a link to DoubleClick, the little triangle icon points to an AdSense support page, and the JavaScript to load the ad comes from googlesyndication.com. From what I understand, that all points to it being an AdSense ad. I suspect the reason that kind of ad is allowed (despite being deceptive IMHO) is that it's not just a download link. It also indicates that it's an ad for a driver update site (which makes it even shadier to my eye, but probably not violating any policies).
MattBearman 11y ago
I was going to say exactly the same thing. Blocking/warning about them at the browser level is a great move, especially as it will also work for ads not served by Google. But they should also be working to stop these ads getting published on their network as well.
- tarpherder 11y ago
  But that is a more direct threat to their revenue stream so of course not :).
raverbashing 11y ago
There should be an easy way to flag an ad for inappropriate behaviour (by the user seeing it)
- chriswarbo 11y ago
  How long would it take before fake "Flag this ad" buttons start appearing on ads?
  - Flimm 11y ago
    The little X button in the top right corner of Google display ads already performs this function, no?
    - kalkin 11y ago
      I tried to flag a deceptive "Start Download" ad of this kind by clicking on this button a few days ago (which appeared on a site I run, annoyingly). The form I was required to fill out needed me to say where the link in the ad took me. So I"m supposed to click on the link in an ad which is pretty plainly attempting to install some kind of malware, in order to be able to report it? I'm supposed to either be 100% confident there's no vulnerability in my browser, or set up some kind of VM to test with, just in order to report a single, obviously malicious ad?
      - infogulch 11y ago
        I just tried it on the getpaint.net site (mentioned elsewhere itt) and it only had an option box set with three options: inappropriate, repetitive, irrelevant. But you could just right click and copy the ad link. The link would point to the ad network (e.g. googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk), but it would be better than nothing. Also, many ads include a domain, sometimes in a tooltip, and usually just the tld, but again, better than nothing.
developer2 11y ago
I'm not at all against this move from Google - it is good sense. However, to play Devil's advocate, what are the odds this was pushed down by the MPAA/RIAA or similar? This policy more or less directly targets sites that offer free online streaming or torrent downloads of Movies/TV/Music. The sites that wind up with these deceptive ads are typically sites that provide copyrighted content to their users. Again, this is not a bad move. But I'm curious about the true motivations. If I were the MPAA, and trying to shut down the revenue stream of sites offering free streaming and torrents, this would be one of the ways to do it. That, or Google is simply sick of receiving takedown notices - and this is one method to take these sites out of their listings before even receiving the DMCA.
- zeven7 11y ago
  Google doesn't make any attempts to pander to the MPAA/RIAA anymore. http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mpaas-attempt-to-revive-sopa.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mpaas-att...
- tonylemesmer 11y ago
  Download button ads appear on websites providing useful utilities and in particular Minecraft content and add-ons. I'm having to educate my kids on what is and isn't a real download button. Its a pain in the arse. I would say it hasn't come from the MPAA or RIAA. These deceptive download buttons appear on a myriad of sites which are not related to streaming/torrenting.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  Actually when I saw the headline my first thought was sourceforge. You expect these kinds of deep web ads when perusing sites you know damn well are "less than legal" but I've seen them on a number of websites I wouldn't normally expect to, sourceforge being the worst offender in my experience.
- witty_username 11y ago
  In my experience most free online streaming and torrent downloading websites have very small hard-to-find download buttons with a lot of fake "Download Now!" ads. So this would actually make torrenting easier.
derefr 11y ago
I'm not sure they need to. Google's approach here tackles the problem of these ads being created from an economic direction: if nobody is seeing these ads, they won't make any CPM money any more, so their creators will stop running them. That's a much more sensible approach than doing what you're suggesting—trying to catch specific instances of people doing something nefarious that makes them money. That just causes the people posting the ads to get more clever, such that it gets more and more costly to catch each instance. (That was helpful in the ReCAPTCHA case, since spammers were advancing computer vision techniques in the process. It's not a harnessable force in the general case.)
- kuschku 11y ago
  It’s an approach that has many casualties, though.
- ethbro 11y ago
  The point was made elsewhere, but I think you stated it most eloquently. Here's my question though: does it not benefit the user to enforce some minimum of deterrence through automated policing on the ad acceptance side? Yes, it's whack-a-mole, but so is SEO, and Google's continually tweaking that instead of giving up. Based on the current rudimentary techniques used by the advertisers (e.g. "DOWNLOAD!" buttons), even eliminating only such blatant examples would go a long way towards cleaning up deceptive ad's. And as you've noted... it's not like Google doesn't have access to advanced CV techniques and the computational infrastructure to run them...
  - mrtron 11y ago
    Google is trying quite hard to stop the download ads. The people running those ads are trying even harder. It has nothing to do with CV, it is not an engineering problem.
    - ethbro 11y ago
      > It has nothing to do with CV, it is not an engineering problem. Not sure what you mean by this, given that there's a human with eyeballs on the other end of the bad ad and a limited number of keywords to trick that human into undesirable actions (virus,error,infected,download,update,install). CV is exactly the solution you'd want to use for a first-pass categorization, given that's the pathway by which the ads communicate with users.
makomk 11y ago
It'll be interesting to see if they block people from visiting sites that use doubleclick for ads, or if this is just an excuse for blocking sites that use competing ad providers.
taoufix 11y ago
Admob too serves similar Ads: "Your phone is infected, click here to install Clean Master..."

rplnt 11y ago

I wonder if those ads that push you to install certain product with half-truths and lies are considered deceptive as well. You know, "Install Chrome for better experience".

bjackman 11y ago

Interesting that when I read "these buttons", I thought " which buttons?" because my brain's spam filter initially made them invisible to me!

danr4 11y ago

This is really important. One step closer to killing ad tech companies who only make money off my grandma and little brother.

afandian 11y ago
You mean Google? I see a tonne of deceptive advertising propagated by Google's ad network.
- danr4 11y ago
  No. I mean the companies whose sole business is to get you to download bundled malware, change your search engine, push ads to every site you browse using extensions etc. Source: I've worked at one of those.
  - afandian 11y ago
    Surely the companies that advertise via Google to try and deceive you to into clicking their download button or whatever fit the bill? And surely Google, by actively enabling them, is also part of the process. As stated elsewhere on this thread, if they can detect deceptive sites, they can detect deceptive adverts.
    - throwaway7767 11y ago
      So they implement detection, and remove these ads. The scummy advertisers then permutate their ads until they get past the detection and the game continues. We're getting pretty good at image classification, but I don't think that extends to maliciously crafted inputs.
      - afandian 11y ago
        That or they manually verify each ad submission. If that violates their business model of high-volume low-value automated processes (and it obviously does) then you have to take account of that when decide how you view company. Automation and the inability to verify at the scale that they operate doesn't somehow absolve them.

whyleyc 11y ago

This is a joke right ? We run Adsense display ads on our site and have to spend significant time every day reviewing and blocking new ads which try to use these deceptive practices. Since Google clearly has the tech to detect this they should be implementing it at source on the advertisers (malvertisers). Instead they are pushing this down to the publishers and hitting them with penalties. It's a clever ploy in some ways - Google gets the revenue from the ads and also the kudos from Joe Public for "being on the side of the consumer".

Pharaoh2 11y ago
Google doesn't charge for ads, it charges for impressions. If you user doesn't seem it, google doesn't get paid. It also seems like a very different tech than trying to determine what an ad script will actually show a user. So it's not easy as if they can do A they can do B. Still doesn't excuse the fact that they should be doing their best to block those kind of ads in their ad network.
- oliwarner 11y ago
  FWIW, "impression" means "request". Who knows what the user saw. Google AdSense is pay-per-click (or some algorithm, based on clicks against and the subject matter's value). In the context of adware rubbish, we are probably talking about AdSense. So no, Google doesn't pay per impression. DoubleClick (part of Google for some time) may still offer an impression-based product. My experience of them a few years ago was that they'd negotiate on anything if you have enough traffic to make it worth their time.
  - Pharaoh2 11y ago
    Are you talking about google paying the website for each click/impression or are you talking about advertisers paying google for each click/impression. Both are termed under impressions (CPM or PPM). And in both cases google loses money in rolling out this feature.
blubb-fish 11y ago
yes, yes and yes ...

chinathrow 11y ago

More censorship... no thanks.

mschuster91 11y ago

Sourceforge, download.cnet.com and friends won't like this... also many of the streaming/OCH sites will be affected.

ceejayoz 11y ago
Imagine the fit the various torrent sites will throw about it.

Piskvorrr 11y ago

"You may have encountered social engineering in a deceptive download button, or an image ad that falsely claims your system is out of date." Weeeellll...I see 99% of these in Android in-app ads. So - a) this should be the end of it, or b) someone is being a bit hypocritical here. I sure hope for the former.

runn1ng 11y ago

I will take programs like this seriously when Google stops bundling Chrome installer with unrelated software like Adobe Flash.

mediumdeviation 11y ago
Adobe Flash is a browser plugin. Chrome is a browser. How are they unrelated?
- runn1ng 11y ago
  If you install Adobe Flash plugin for a different browser, Chrome gets bundled with it. Even if you don't want Chrome.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Chrome doesn't use/work with the Flash browser plugin.
jdoliner 11y ago
Flash is unrelated to a web browser? I mean I hate flash as much as the next guy... but how can Flash not be related to a browser?
- runn1ng 11y ago
  You want to install Flash for Firefox, it will install Chrome by default.
  - joepvd 11y ago
    I did not install flash in FF, and I do not miss a thing. Sometimes there is this warning that not all content could be displayed, but I would not have a clue what functionality is missing.

jdoliner 11y ago

This is really awesome. I was so excited I actually clicked the fake download buttons to try to install it. So when does this role out?

zodPod 11y ago
I'm so glad that I'm not the only one! haha

cabirum 11y ago

Google should detect and block the buttons, not display full-screen warnings. What next? "This site contains controversial views"? Or "Politically incorrect website ahead"?

RansomTime 11y ago
Google can't block elements on sites it does not control. Warning users of phishing and warning users of speech that it finds objectionable are 2 different things entirely.
- cabirum 11y ago
  A deceptive button does not equal phishing. It just might (and most often does) open a non-malicious popup with some ad. (non-malicious in a sense it won't install ransomware to your PC) And of course Google can easily integrate it's own ad blocker in Chrome if it chooses so.
- gergles 11y ago
  It can in the browser they control...
bdcravens 11y ago
They've already said they'll start shaming non-https sites.

tdkl 11y ago

I hope they'll include a "Stop the nanny" flag in chrome://flags as well. I mean you can't even change the new tab page to a custom .html, without Chrome nagging you at every launch if the settings are correct. If you make a manifest.json and load as an unpacked extension, it will moan about that. FFS, I know what you're trying to do with Joe/Jane Noob, but at least give me something to skip that if I know what I'm doing. [edit] This wouldn't be even needed if new tab page was customizable. Now it it's just a Google billboard.

derefr 11y ago
The hard part here is that, wherever you'd decide to persist a "don't bug me any more about this" flag, malware could also potentially write that same flag to that same place. For example, Windows UAC is frequently set to the "don't bug me about this, just auto-elevate" setting by malware.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  > The hard part here is that, wherever you'd decide to persist a "don't bug me any more about this" flag, Build a new binary - offer users to install a "developer" build of Chrome which is exactly the same as the mainstream "release" build, except it allows disabling the protections.
  - derefr 11y ago
    You don't actually have to go that far; there are plenty of Chrome settings controlled by command-line options, and that's usually safe enough—it's actually really hard for malware to "sneak in" command-line options (if the user is a regular user, while the the Chrome shortcuts in the Start Menu et al were installed under elevation, which is the usual case.) There's a command-line option to Chrome that entirely disables the sandboxing protections, for instance. My distinction was just that there's absolutely no way to have a UI-based mechanism for disabling nags, since behind any UI is a persisted flag. If you're up for editing your shortcuts to add command-line options, that's fine.

oliv__ 11y ago

I know these fake ads all suck and everyone hates them but somehow getting rid of them feels like cutting off a little piece of what makes the web the web. I kinda like this darker, more free-for-all, wild wild west side of the Internet.

sergiotapia 11y ago
Me too man, I remember the internet back then where everything was unique and not a cookie-cutter bootstrap boilterplate. Want a nostalgia trip? Download Opera (one of the early versions) - it'll pluck at your heart strings and make you yearn for times when you had more personal responsibility and Google wasn't there to infect everything with it's nanny browser. Hell, even Firefox the last bastion of Freedom on the web, is following Chrome.
- fixermark 11y ago
  Mostly because there's more benefit to be gained in making the web usable by non-experts than in preserving the current status quo. There's a reason the Wild West didn't stay wild.
  - Piskvorrr 11y ago
    This. More specifically, the Wild West got wild for a few years - during a massive population influx - while the entire system was unstable (which also means interesting, in most senses of the word). The metaphor leaks, but is close enough.
  - sergiotapia 11y ago
    I agree, but it still sucks that it seems you're being sold something at every turn. Websites are no longer there, just to be there. It's always about the upsell or agenda.
    - cableshaft 11y ago
      That's one reason why I'm a little annoyed personal websites went mostly the way of the Dodo and you can only expect friends to check things out if you give them direct links to some trusted site from a site they use all the time, like a link to a Youtube video from Facebook, or your Medium or Tumblr entry from Twitter. I still like designing personal websites, but it seems like a waste of time now.

userbinator 11y ago

As I write this, the ranking of the comments here is... strange. Those who see this as being yet another way of Google using their power to manipulate what people see on the Internet are being heavily downvoted, while those agreeing with the practice are not? That doesn't feel like HN to me. I'm in the former group. This mollycoddling is just going to lead to more users who can't decide for themselves whether something is suspicious or not and are thus easier to deceive, which might be exactly what Google wants, but I certainly do not think it is good for the Web as a whole (or even society in general.) Being able to make these sorts of decisions of trust is an important part of growing up in general, and I'd even say "finding the right download button" could be considered a sort of right of passage to being an effective user of the Web, and not just a consumer.

Profan 11y ago
You can't seriously be saying that people potentially running into malware because they couldn't figure out with download button was the real one is reasonable?
- userbinator 11y ago
  You can't seriously be saying that not being able to figure out which download button is the right one is reasonable? With experience, it's extremely easy to find the real one. - It's usually smaller and less prominent than the fake ones. - Mousing over it doesn't show a huge long URL to some external domain that sounds ad-like. Using adblock probably gets rid of a lot of the fake ones too, but the general principle here is if it looks too good/easy to be true, it probably is. The buttons that seem really enticing are the ones you don't want to click, and it's that odd, not-very-attractive one that you want.
Piskvorrr 11y ago
As an experienced user, when I'm looking for some semi-obscure Windows program, I still do have problems distinguishing legit download links from this. Perhaps I'm too used to the radical method "just select what you want from the repository, and it will be installed automagically;" in other words, one of the issues here is nonexistent install management in Windows (party like it's 1998!), forcing users to run this gauntlet (MSI? Puh-leeze).

fiatjaf 11y ago

The first thing they should do is harshly penalize websites with a lot of ads in their search results.

tobltobs 11y ago

This blog post is not talking about those Adsense Download buttons, is it?

caleblloyd 11y ago

Awe man guess I can't use chrome to browse The Pirate Bay anymore...

throwaway7767 11y ago
> Awe man guess I can't use chrome to browse The Pirate Bay anymore... More likely, TPB stops running these particular shady ads, because chrome is such a popular browser.

kbart 11y ago

It's a laudable initiative to protect average Joe from himself, but I don't feel like Google (or any other company) deciding for me what is dangerous. They should at least provide this feature as an opt-out option. Still, better option would be to educate more people of ad and script blockers.

lallysingh 11y ago
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020?hl=en There's been a setting for this stuff forever.

joosters 11y ago

So safe browsing is now blocking pages where the adverts are "often not distinguishable from the rest of the page"? IMO that covers all of Google's search result pages. Most users don't seem to realise that the top results are paid advertising...

username223 11y ago
Came here to say this. Most of their above-the-fold "results" are either ads or SEO-ed junk probably full of Google ads. More broadly, pretending to protect against social engineering is a joke. They won't catch anything other than the most obvious stuff, and they will also block some stuff that many people won't want blocked. Does this feature block Java downloads containing the Ask toolbar? Should it?
Karunamon 11y ago
Here's a google SERP for "insurance": http://imgur.com/VUqwyPq http://imgur.com/VUqwyPq Are you saying the bright "ad" lozenge next to the paid results isn't explicit enough? And anyways, users don't go out of their way to avoid clicking on ads unless the ads are utter crap. Google's whole business is to make the ads relevant to the search and the user, so who's to say the ad isn't actually a relevant result?
- woobar 11y ago
  >the bright "ad" lozenge next to the paid results isn't explicit enough Yes, it is not explicit enough. The tiny yellow box is just a noise present on every search page. As any noise it will be ignored. Especially when everything else in these ads tries to look exactly as a valid search result.
  - 0xffff2 11y ago
    So what should Google do then? If a "tiny yellow box" is just noise, isn't a larger yellow box just more noise?
    - 11y ago

FussyZeus 11y ago

There's an unexpectedly large number of commenters who seem to think that this falls under free speech. Do I need to explain that the crap these ads usually download when clicked is responsible for a ton of support calls, many of which go to innocent kids on weekends just trying to unwind from school? :) I'm kidding of course but seriously comparing blocking these buttons and deceptive elements is not censorship, it's Google saying to these publishers that if they don't get their shit together, that they will dissuade traffic from visiting their sites. The only way to get the attention of bigger publishing companies is to grab them by the revenue stream, you all know this.

tempodox 11y ago

Does that mean they're taking down SourceForge?

yuhong 11y ago
It just got sold to BIZX, which I think promised to stop some of the practices.

TheRealmccoy 11y ago

Also, ideally Google should implement this within their search algorithm itself, by punishing the sites which indulge in such practices by pushing their search results much further away.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

cableshaft 11y ago
First of all, it's only through their browser. There are alternative browsers you can use. And they already filter search results, quite extensively.

iwillreply 11y ago

"Pretend to act, or look and feel, like a trusted entity — like your own device or browser, or the website itself." This is a broad statement. Taken at face value, this covers all native advertising - with articles/images/videos/thumbnails/etc intended to fit in with the content of the site/app.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
If we can get rid of native advertising too, I'm all for it. Native advertising is a special kind of evil.

ChrisNorstrom 11y ago

Too late google. I already intsalled ad blocker on every computer in the house years ago because my parents would accidentally click "play" or "download" in deceptive ads.

torgoguys 11y ago

I'm surprised of the negativity towards this action, but I guess I shouldn't be. A lot of you are in a very different situation than me and this will affect you directly. However, warning people away from being potentially tricked by these deceptive ads is a very good thing. Tons of sites out there that turn a blind eye to such ads and that's bad. Yes, there will be some unfortunate pain for sites that responsibly attempt to block these ads as they come up. Assuming the blog post is correct and Google has implemented this correctly, it should be minimal for those sorts of folks since they claim the penalty will only occur if users are consistently getting social engineering ads. (I suspect Google will ratchet up the rate over time though, assuming these ads become less common as a result of this and similar efforts). EDIT: See below. I'm convinced and with y'all now. Google--this is a step in the right direction and I support this action, but you do need to get your own house in order too!

protomyth 11y ago
> I'm surprised of the negativity towards this action Its pretty basic. A lot of people are not happy that Google is serving these ads that they are telling you they will stop at the browser-level with a warning that makes the site owner look guilty. They want Google's Ad network to stop serving the ads in the first place.
- torgoguys 11y ago
  Thanks for that. So can anyone point me to an ad served by Google that is as bad as the examples in the blog post? I thought Google had previously cracked down on such ads from the serving side too, although less deceptive ones were still allowed, no? I'm happy to be better informed!
  - infogulch 11y ago
    getpaint.net is mentioned elsewhere itt. Perhaps not quite as bad, but still at least mildly deceptive.
    - 11y ago

mcintyre1994 11y ago

Despite all the legal attacks in the UK and elsewhere, this is probably the biggest blow to piracy sites so far. When one gets taken down another spins up, but if you turn your adblocker off they all have these awful adverts.

undefined0 11y ago
For organic traffic pirate sites, the biggest blow was Google's algorithm change. For websites which used a freemium model, the biggest blow was PayPal, Visa and Mastercard banning file sharing websites from using them. Todays announcement was merely a nail in the coffin for those sites.

rundmc 11y ago

Amazing idea. It will save so many people form mal-links but even sophisticated users from trying to figure out which is the real "download" button

jcfrei 11y ago

So who decides what to flag? Is google analyzing the behavior of chrome users and then automatically flags websites? Or can users flag websites? I disabled "Automatically report details of possible security incidents to Google" and "Protect you and your device from dangerous sites" in the settings, will my chrome browser still report these websites (in case it ever did)?

dfar1 11y ago

It's about time google crack down on these ads. The download button is just one of the many tactics. Any ads that show a guy with biceps three times the size of his head should also be banned. Yahoo is infested with these "sponsored" ads, and pretty much any other site that lives on ads revenue only.

infogulch 11y ago
Pretend to act, or look and feel, like a trusted entity — like your own device or browser, or the website itself. These are deceptive tactics, intended to confuse and trick. What you describe is annoying and perhaps exploitative of humans desires, but in the end no different from normal advertising and far less evil than the ads described in the quote above. You want a full ad-blocker. Perhaps you're already using one and want to justify it.

astral303 11y ago

This is a great move. Computers are extremely difficult and deceptive for those who can't remember the myriad of rules and gotchas. What we really need is an open pledge of non-deceptiveness, give it a catchy name, and then advertise sites as conforming to it.

bpg_92 11y ago

Welp, hopefully they will make it optional and we can turn it off.

dheera 11y ago

This "Google Safe Browsing" initiative seriously worries me. It's effectively some unknown, mysterious, un-contactable set of AI algorithms/people/who knows what controlling the internet because Google owns everyone's browser. One of my websites got tagged as "Dangerous" and having "harmful programs" despite having nothing of the sort. My guess is a silly hiccup of their neural network algorithms. And I have absolutely nobody I can contact about the issue to get an explanation. They just effectively killed the site in one fell swoop.

ryanlol 11y ago
As with most things in this world, you could sue them.
- dheera 11y ago
  It wasn't a major or revenue-generating site, so I don't want to spend on legal fees. If it had been though, I would.
  - ryanlol 11y ago
    Yeah, I've experienced the same and it's really a pain in the ass. Apparently there's tons of orgs that can automatically add sites to that blacklist, I got abuse from some company saying there was a phishing page on my IP because it featured a login page and the text "Amazon" and suddenly chrome started showing alerts when I visited the IP. As with most of similar systems (spamhaus etc) the people running them are just as bad as the people they're trying to stop.
- mtgx 11y ago
  How many of the sites that were illegitimately blocked can afford to sue Google? How many can afford to win against Google's top notch legal team?
  - ryanlol 11y ago
    The real question is "Is it worth it for google to send their legal team to some small claims court hearing instead of just unblocking the site?" And contrary to the popular belief, suing people really isn't that expensive if you've got the time to do it.

ksk 11y ago

I don't see the difference between "Buy this Pill to lose weight" and "Download this codec".

spdustin 11y ago

Here are some more proactive approaches that would support their desired perception of caring about the browsing safety of their users: * How about updating the radio buttons that appear when you "report this ad" to include "deceptive" as the reason for the report * DoubleClick (by Google) serves the majority of these "Download now" ads that I've seen on sites that cater to the general public. Don't let advertisers run these ads. Do. Not. Allow. Many of them have "start download" in the plain text of the ad unit, and others are easily found by a bit of OCR on an image ad unit. Please do not give me a Google-branded poncho (telling me how amazing it is with an infomercial about its revolutionary Dry Living Experience™) when you could patch the leaky roof to truly create a Dry Living Experience.

rackforms 11y ago

My AdWords account was suspended a few days ago because of, I presume at least, this: https://www.rackforms.com/rackforms-express-for-wordpress.php https://www.rackforms.com/rackforms-express-for-wordpress.ph... A popup in AdWords says I've violated "Unsupported content free desktop software". RackForms Express is a free version of my flagship product, that one actually being advertised. You're feelings may very well differ, but if I've clicked on a link, organic or ad, and I get offered a solution to the problem I was seeking an answer for, that seem like a pretty good deal. If nothing else, this differentiation may well be the difference between getting a sale or not. The appeal process is to fill out this form: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/contact/advertise_software_pol https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/contact/advertise_s..., but from my reading in Google's product forms this doesn't always work. If this fails, the end result will be to remove free software from the net. We're all for blocking those horrible "Download Firefox" ads, but this change, and the resulting aftermath, feels...I don't know, dangerous. If the end result is small companies like mine pulling valuable resources from the web, I think we all loose. Fingers crossed my appeal goes through.

flipp3r 11y ago

Let's put Google's Youtube behind a deceptive site screen immediately! http://i.imgur.com/cXf5dwJ.png http://i.imgur.com/cXf5dwJ.png

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Yup, here's another: https://plus.google.com/+JakeWeisz/posts/6YMTfeRw2jY https://plus.google.com/+JakeWeisz/posts/6YMTfeRw2jY

Osiris 11y ago

I hate using free hosted download services that some people use, especially on forums, because there are ads with download buttons and real download buttons and it's nearly impossible to tell which button needs to be clicked to initiate a download.

jlgaddis 11y ago

I hope they block Sourceforge and their deceptive "Download" buttons as well.

greggman 11y ago

Hmmm, I just went to google.com and typed "Chrome for Windows" Of the 10 links that appeared, at least 4 or 5 were for malware infected versions of Chrome. I followed the links, the download buttons on those pages are still shown. Maybe I misunderstood

dredmorbius 11y ago

Sounds good to me. I'd like to see Google take this one step further: author and publisher (as in advertising network) accountability. https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/Fitbdvdkw32 https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/Fitbdvdk... 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 repeated 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. If Google don't block ads, I will. Oh, wait, I already do that. But the rest of the Net is still catching up.

6stringmerc 11y ago

I tend to enjoy these type of announcements and discussions regarding Google, because it seems to remind the general population that while yes, Alphabet is a diversified technology powerhouse, at its core, its most primal competency is that of an advertising firm. A very successful advertising firm. Sort of like how Jerry Jones was a very successful oil business tycoon before diversifying his interests by way of purchasing the Dallas Cowboys and 'business-ing' it up to a multi-billion dollar brand. No oil, no Cowboys for Jerry. No ads, no self-driving cars for Google.