4 ms·

> Bing makes it clear when a site is promoted by prepending "ad" to the search result. Other search engines such as DuckDuckGo and Google do the same. They ver

by beager 8y ago

> Bing makes it clear when a site is promoted by prepending "ad" to the search result. Other search engines such as DuckDuckGo and Google do the same. They very specifically do not make it clear, they (and I mean all of them) intend to make sponsored results look as identical as possible to organic results to improve the likelihood that you'll click them. They only have subtle markings showing that they're ads because if they didn't, such an abuse of trust would be ruinous to any search engine. What's even worse here is that in the linked video, the Bing ad shows the domain as `google.com`, which is something you expect to be accurately represented in any listing, organic or paid. That's the sort of thing that should be ruinous to Bing.

vezycash 8y ago
>the Bing ad shows the domain as `google.com There's a reason for this - ad tracking for conversion, performance or even to make sure the advertising network is honest. The ad tracking domain is not always the same as destination domain. AFAIK, this problem seems easily solved. All Ms has to do is flag ads whose displayed URL do not match the final URL for manual review. Or simply ban it.
- larkeith 8y ago
  This does not excuse displaying false information, especially when that information misleads users into downloading malware.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  Bing and Google have always paid a lot of attention to the "landing page" for search ads, and they have a lot of technology to make sure that the landing page for an ad doesn't change after they've reviewed it. Still, fraudsters have ways of changing the landing page to something different. In this case someone seems to have successfully convinced bing that the landing page domain is google.com -- it's unlikely that it's "easily solved". Or that the next one will be easily solved.
- Sephr 8y ago
  > All Ms has to do is flag ads whose displayed URL do not match the final URL for manual review. Or simply ban it. The ad did match the final URL, it just selectively redirected to the legitimate or malicious page based on user agent. See https://twitter.com/sephr/status/1055751684146655232?s=19 https://twitter.com/sephr/status/1055751684146655232?s=19

by beager 8y ago

vezycash 8y ago

>the Bing ad shows the domain as `google.com There's a reason for this - ad tracking for conversion, performance or even to make sure the advertising network is honest. The ad tracking domain is not always the same as destination domain. AFAIK, this problem seems easily solved. All Ms has to do is flag ads whose displayed URL do not match the final URL for manual review. Or simply ban it.

larkeith 8y ago
This does not excuse displaying false information, especially when that information misleads users into downloading malware.
greglindahl 8y ago
Bing and Google have always paid a lot of attention to the "landing page" for search ads, and they have a lot of technology to make sure that the landing page for an ad doesn't change after they've reviewed it. Still, fraudsters have ways of changing the landing page to something different. In this case someone seems to have successfully convinced bing that the landing page domain is google.com -- it's unlikely that it's "easily solved". Or that the next one will be easily solved.
Sephr 8y ago
> All Ms has to do is flag ads whose displayed URL do not match the final URL for manual review. Or simply ban it. The ad did match the final URL, it just selectively redirected to the legitimate or malicious page based on user agent. See https://twitter.com/sephr/status/1055751684146655232?s=19 https://twitter.com/sephr/status/1055751684146655232?s=19