12 ms·

A New Wave of Bad Ads Is Hijacking Even Top-Tier Websites (2018)

43 points by colinprince 7y ago

vanadium 7y ago
(2018)
kabdib 7y ago
Ironic that the first paragraph or so of that article was unreadable because of overlying ads.
- inetknght 7y ago
  I didn't have any trouble with that with javascript off and using reader mode.
- andrei_says_ 7y ago
  Running pi-hole on my network... the page loaded instantaneously and with no ads.
_ph_ 7y ago
It is the same story over and over again. Yes, for a business running a website of any sorts, it is easy money just to include ads from an independant (from you) ad provider. By just signing up and including the necessary scripts into your web site, the money keeps coming without any further effort necessary. This is also the reason, we have so many new web sites popping up - just by attracting traffic you can make money. But the downside - at least for any legitimate business like newspapers - is, that you are selling out your estate to someone you do not control. And as experience shows, the ad providers mostly don't deserve the trust which they are given. As a consequence, ad blocking more and more becomes an act of self-defense. What is needed is the return of running ads like printed magazines did - the inclusion of the ads needs to be part of the editing process and curated by the publication. They need to take up full responsibility and liability for the ads they serve. And as a consequence, ads might be actually get looked at again. Personally, I am much more likely to look at a printed ad and usually it is much more relevant than the "targetted" crap we get to see on the web.
- supergauntlet 7y ago
  I've been thinking about this a lot, actually. Advertising doesn't have to be terrible. We already have basically everyone on youtube sponsored by SquareSpace or nordvpn or something, right? Because the ads on youtube are shit pay and everyone hates them. People don't like the squarespace or nordvpn ads but they're more integrated into the video so they aren't as simply blockable, and at least they're paying the creator directly so they're seen as a more necessary evil. Why not build advertising profiles, then, not on users? Why not build them on the channels? A few channels I follow already have models similar to this, like for example PBS Eons is sponsored by CuriosityStream which is 100% right up the alley of anyone who likes PBS Eons. So why not figure out a way to, instead of tracking everyone so aggressively everywhere they go, find some way to build advertising profiles that match with the content of the video? I've gotten so sick of seeing ads that are totally irrelevant to what I'm watching or reading that I use an adblocker everywhere I can - this is the only reason I still root my android phone. But surely we can do better? If I'm looking up, say, information about electronic drum sets as I've been doing the past few days, I should be getting ads on those youtube videos or those reddit pages or those reviews about other options I have. Seeing stuff about something I searched last week is both irrelevant AND creepy.
  - _ph_ 7y ago
    I fully agree. Adds which are integrated into the content, especially into the youtube videos are difficult to impossible to block, but also usually acceptable because the content provider or the youtuber do stake their reputation on them and have full control about the content. And my experience matches yours, I am much more likely to get actual interesting information and consequential the ad might lead to an actual purchase, if it is not generated by tracking me - usually those ads just repeat what I looked at recentlxy - but by being related to the content I am interested in. Much more likely to be something interesting and especially new to me.
    - Anarch157a 7y ago
      There's another plus side to this, the fact that the add is delivered in the style of the channel/presenter, instead of being a pasteurized boilerplate pre-recorded crap, some of them can be very entertaining.
bsg75 7y ago
> Unlike in print or broadcast media, where advertisers and agencies that represent them can submit ads directly to publishers for review, online ad space is typically bought and sold through complex systems of intermediaries and exchanges. Yes, outsourcing the control of content that appears on your site will likely result in quality problems. I'm aware that such practices can benefit small business with ad revenue, but if the "top-tier" wants to avoid the problem, they have the resources to self manage it. Provided they are willing to invest in producing quality content AND relevant, legitimate advertising.
- s3r3nity 7y ago
  As someone that has done consulting in a past life for ad-tech, I think you're severely underestimating not only the effort involved to keep this type of ad sales team + ad-operations + ad-tech in-house, but the _significant_ margin gain for potentially a higher quality experience for the user.* As in, it's a very non-linear gain for going with an ad-network rather than try to hire and build that much talent + capital respectively. And that's just for _one_ publisher - imagine if every single publisher had to do this! *The hypothesis here is that a more targeted ad experience is better for me, as a user, rather than some generic ad that I would see in a newspaper, where everyone sees the same thing (hence your "relevant advertising" note.) If you don't believe this to be true, then some folks on the Executive team at Alphabet would _love_ to talk to you about how Google's whole business model is built on a lie.
  - phicoh 7y ago
    The lie is that users like targeted ads. Most people buying ads believe that targeted ads give better results. But that doesn't mean that people like to be followed by ads for something they just bought. Let alone all the privacy violations where if somebody can see you web browser, they can see from the ads what you have been doing recently.
  - bsg75 7y ago
    > I think you're severely underestimating not only the effort Not at all. I'm simply pointing out that there is also a cost to outsourcing, in the form of risk. This is especially relevant in an industry like ad-tech, where a bad actor can taint a brand.
CommieBobDole 7y ago
From the article: "But experts say the problem isn’t with lack of discernment on the part of site publishers but with an extremely complex online advertising system that makes it hard for publishers involved to detect, let alone weed out, misleading and malware-laden ads." Which is crap. It's your site, you're responsible for what you run on it. If I ran a store, and the guy from the company that cleans the floors occasionally stabs customers in the face, nobody would accept me shrugging and saying "well, it's really hard to tell which companies employ face-stabbers so I guess you're just going to get some face-stabbing every once in a while. Sorry". If you go to a site and you get malware from an ad network, it's because the site owner doesn't care if you get malware from an ad network. Full stop.
- masswerk 7y ago
  Let's introduce responsibility for hosted content: Every ad has to come with an audit (report linked visibly in a bottom corner of the ad), either by the publishing platform or by a trusted and certified auditor on behalf of the network. (There is no such thing as a free lunch.)
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Well said. If you don't want to be criticized for sending your customers malware... get better control over the the third party scripts on your site. Trusting a negligent third-party actor is negligent in itself. If NYT is willing to sell out it's readers to sketchy internet ad providers, what assurances do we have that they won't also sell-out readers to intentional paid propaganda? Slippery slope for an organization rooted in journalistic integrity. Does management have controls in place for this?
  - GoRudy 7y ago
    We've had spam originate from google in the past, honestly they're by far the best source of good quality demand and even they occasionally have spam get through. Better control of third party scripts is a good point, minimize the number of networks and focusing on quality is important but it's not a guarantee spammers won't get through.
FerretFred 7y ago
Luckily uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger blocked 39 trackers in that article!
- ASalazarMX 7y ago
  My god, you weren't kidding! 23 requests blocked just by uBlock Origin alone. That's not advertising, that's a shotgun.
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    I really want an ad-ware fuzzer. Whenever a website makes a request to a third party script, unless whitelisted, fuzz the contents of the request. Re-fuzz a several dozen times and resend each to make ~100 entries. I don't like my data being collected, and my voluntary participation in their scheme does not preclude poisoning their dataset. Let them filter the crap out. I wish there was a more adversarial adblocker.
    - GonzaloQuero 7y ago
      Isn't that what AdNauseam does? https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/
      - bsaul 7y ago
        As the original article mentioned, some of those ads actually includes malware. I wouldn't feel safe using an extension that actually clicks on every single one of them (even if on the background and dismissing the response).
    - stirfrykitty 7y ago
      Agreed. I would like to see an add-on that sends a sick amount of clicks to the 3rd party and costs them a fortune. If there was no ROI, ads would diminish. Content does not need to be free. I pay for email. I pay for other online services I use. I pay to go to the cinema despite the eye-watering robbery at the concession stand (my kids love it). Or on the less ramped up scale, something that send all ads to /dev/null, letting them think the ad was delivered and viewed, but it goes into the bit bucket. I remember years ago when Flash was a thing. I used to symlink .adobe and .macromedia to /dev/null to avoid the LSOs. Flash worked, but I never had to worry about LSOs not being cleared when the browser was sanitized.
HillaryBriss 7y ago
the complex online advertising system ...allows [malvertizers] to precisely target ... users who have unpatched operating systems or browsers ... I do not find this reassuring.
fortran77 7y ago
This is why I block ads. I have nothing against advertising. I wouldn't object to reading an article in the NY Times and seeing an ad for Ford's new car, or a new Pixar movie. But I can't take the risk of having malware installed on my computer, or accidentally clicking somewhere and being fooled, swindled, or misled.
rchaud 7y ago
I have visited a small soccer message board (roughly 5k users) every day since 2012. They sell their own ads, and every ad is a static banner image, hosted on that board's domain. I'm happy to keep adblock off on that site. It's about as old school as it gets. I can't imagine they make much money at all, but for me, the user, it's nice to go someplace with a smallish online community where I don't feel like I'm being tracked or have to put up with the zero-QA dumpster fire that is programmatic advertising.
- naravara 7y ago
  The interesting part is I feel like sites that do this cultivate a lot more trust in the products they’re advertising. It’s fewer impressions maybe, but having a publisher who actually stands by their ad buys does a lot to confer legitimacy, especially for brands or companies that aren’t well known.
keiru 7y ago
Seemingly related: "Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20288768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20288768
ralphc 7y ago
The peak of this was Forbes who made you turn off ads & served you malware; https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-readers-to-turn-off-ad-blockers-promptly-serves-malware https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-re... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11455031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11455031
aitchnyu 7y ago
OpenX and co throws money in the cat and mouse game to police ads that seem decent but pounces on grandmas in Azerbaijan using a 4 year old Android by a defunct phone maker on Christmas eve. What is the reason for using Javascript instead of a dumb img tag? What is the reason for platforms to allow advertisers to push malware to user instead of their own impression tracking scripts?

43 points by colinprince 7y ago

vanadium 7y ago

(2018)

kabdib 7y ago

Ironic that the first paragraph or so of that article was unreadable because of overlying ads.

inetknght 7y ago
I didn't have any trouble with that with javascript off and using reader mode.
andrei_says_ 7y ago
Running pi-hole on my network... the page loaded instantaneously and with no ads.

_ph_ 7y ago

It is the same story over and over again. Yes, for a business running a website of any sorts, it is easy money just to include ads from an independant (from you) ad provider. By just signing up and including the necessary scripts into your web site, the money keeps coming without any further effort necessary. This is also the reason, we have so many new web sites popping up - just by attracting traffic you can make money. But the downside - at least for any legitimate business like newspapers - is, that you are selling out your estate to someone you do not control. And as experience shows, the ad providers mostly don't deserve the trust which they are given. As a consequence, ad blocking more and more becomes an act of self-defense. What is needed is the return of running ads like printed magazines did - the inclusion of the ads needs to be part of the editing process and curated by the publication. They need to take up full responsibility and liability for the ads they serve. And as a consequence, ads might be actually get looked at again. Personally, I am much more likely to look at a printed ad and usually it is much more relevant than the "targetted" crap we get to see on the web.

supergauntlet 7y ago
I've been thinking about this a lot, actually. Advertising doesn't have to be terrible. We already have basically everyone on youtube sponsored by SquareSpace or nordvpn or something, right? Because the ads on youtube are shit pay and everyone hates them. People don't like the squarespace or nordvpn ads but they're more integrated into the video so they aren't as simply blockable, and at least they're paying the creator directly so they're seen as a more necessary evil. Why not build advertising profiles, then, not on users? Why not build them on the channels? A few channels I follow already have models similar to this, like for example PBS Eons is sponsored by CuriosityStream which is 100% right up the alley of anyone who likes PBS Eons. So why not figure out a way to, instead of tracking everyone so aggressively everywhere they go, find some way to build advertising profiles that match with the content of the video? I've gotten so sick of seeing ads that are totally irrelevant to what I'm watching or reading that I use an adblocker everywhere I can - this is the only reason I still root my android phone. But surely we can do better? If I'm looking up, say, information about electronic drum sets as I've been doing the past few days, I should be getting ads on those youtube videos or those reddit pages or those reviews about other options I have. Seeing stuff about something I searched last week is both irrelevant AND creepy.
- _ph_ 7y ago
  I fully agree. Adds which are integrated into the content, especially into the youtube videos are difficult to impossible to block, but also usually acceptable because the content provider or the youtuber do stake their reputation on them and have full control about the content. And my experience matches yours, I am much more likely to get actual interesting information and consequential the ad might lead to an actual purchase, if it is not generated by tracking me - usually those ads just repeat what I looked at recentlxy - but by being related to the content I am interested in. Much more likely to be something interesting and especially new to me.
  - Anarch157a 7y ago
    There's another plus side to this, the fact that the add is delivered in the style of the channel/presenter, instead of being a pasteurized boilerplate pre-recorded crap, some of them can be very entertaining.

bsg75 7y ago

> Unlike in print or broadcast media, where advertisers and agencies that represent them can submit ads directly to publishers for review, online ad space is typically bought and sold through complex systems of intermediaries and exchanges. Yes, outsourcing the control of content that appears on your site will likely result in quality problems. I'm aware that such practices can benefit small business with ad revenue, but if the "top-tier" wants to avoid the problem, they have the resources to self manage it. Provided they are willing to invest in producing quality content AND relevant, legitimate advertising.

s3r3nity 7y ago
As someone that has done consulting in a past life for ad-tech, I think you're severely underestimating not only the effort involved to keep this type of ad sales team + ad-operations + ad-tech in-house, but the _significant_ margin gain for potentially a higher quality experience for the user.* As in, it's a very non-linear gain for going with an ad-network rather than try to hire and build that much talent + capital respectively. And that's just for _one_ publisher - imagine if every single publisher had to do this! *The hypothesis here is that a more targeted ad experience is better for me, as a user, rather than some generic ad that I would see in a newspaper, where everyone sees the same thing (hence your "relevant advertising" note.) If you don't believe this to be true, then some folks on the Executive team at Alphabet would _love_ to talk to you about how Google's whole business model is built on a lie.
- phicoh 7y ago
  The lie is that users like targeted ads. Most people buying ads believe that targeted ads give better results. But that doesn't mean that people like to be followed by ads for something they just bought. Let alone all the privacy violations where if somebody can see you web browser, they can see from the ads what you have been doing recently.
- bsg75 7y ago
  > I think you're severely underestimating not only the effort Not at all. I'm simply pointing out that there is also a cost to outsourcing, in the form of risk. This is especially relevant in an industry like ad-tech, where a bad actor can taint a brand.

CommieBobDole 7y ago

From the article: "But experts say the problem isn’t with lack of discernment on the part of site publishers but with an extremely complex online advertising system that makes it hard for publishers involved to detect, let alone weed out, misleading and malware-laden ads." Which is crap. It's your site, you're responsible for what you run on it. If I ran a store, and the guy from the company that cleans the floors occasionally stabs customers in the face, nobody would accept me shrugging and saying "well, it's really hard to tell which companies employ face-stabbers so I guess you're just going to get some face-stabbing every once in a while. Sorry". If you go to a site and you get malware from an ad network, it's because the site owner doesn't care if you get malware from an ad network. Full stop.

masswerk 7y ago
Let's introduce responsibility for hosted content: Every ad has to come with an audit (report linked visibly in a bottom corner of the ad), either by the publishing platform or by a trusted and certified auditor on behalf of the network. (There is no such thing as a free lunch.)
cwkoss 7y ago
Well said. If you don't want to be criticized for sending your customers malware... get better control over the the third party scripts on your site. Trusting a negligent third-party actor is negligent in itself. If NYT is willing to sell out it's readers to sketchy internet ad providers, what assurances do we have that they won't also sell-out readers to intentional paid propaganda? Slippery slope for an organization rooted in journalistic integrity. Does management have controls in place for this?
- GoRudy 7y ago
  We've had spam originate from google in the past, honestly they're by far the best source of good quality demand and even they occasionally have spam get through. Better control of third party scripts is a good point, minimize the number of networks and focusing on quality is important but it's not a guarantee spammers won't get through.

FerretFred 7y ago

Luckily uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger blocked 39 trackers in that article!

ASalazarMX 7y ago
My god, you weren't kidding! 23 requests blocked just by uBlock Origin alone. That's not advertising, that's a shotgun.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  I really want an ad-ware fuzzer. Whenever a website makes a request to a third party script, unless whitelisted, fuzz the contents of the request. Re-fuzz a several dozen times and resend each to make ~100 entries. I don't like my data being collected, and my voluntary participation in their scheme does not preclude poisoning their dataset. Let them filter the crap out. I wish there was a more adversarial adblocker.
  - GonzaloQuero 7y ago
    Isn't that what AdNauseam does? https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/
    - bsaul 7y ago
      As the original article mentioned, some of those ads actually includes malware. I wouldn't feel safe using an extension that actually clicks on every single one of them (even if on the background and dismissing the response).
  - stirfrykitty 7y ago
    Agreed. I would like to see an add-on that sends a sick amount of clicks to the 3rd party and costs them a fortune. If there was no ROI, ads would diminish. Content does not need to be free. I pay for email. I pay for other online services I use. I pay to go to the cinema despite the eye-watering robbery at the concession stand (my kids love it). Or on the less ramped up scale, something that send all ads to /dev/null, letting them think the ad was delivered and viewed, but it goes into the bit bucket. I remember years ago when Flash was a thing. I used to symlink .adobe and .macromedia to /dev/null to avoid the LSOs. Flash worked, but I never had to worry about LSOs not being cleared when the browser was sanitized.

HillaryBriss 7y ago

the complex online advertising system ...allows [malvertizers] to precisely target ... users who have unpatched operating systems or browsers ... I do not find this reassuring.

fortran77 7y ago

This is why I block ads. I have nothing against advertising. I wouldn't object to reading an article in the NY Times and seeing an ad for Ford's new car, or a new Pixar movie. But I can't take the risk of having malware installed on my computer, or accidentally clicking somewhere and being fooled, swindled, or misled.

rchaud 7y ago

I have visited a small soccer message board (roughly 5k users) every day since 2012. They sell their own ads, and every ad is a static banner image, hosted on that board's domain. I'm happy to keep adblock off on that site. It's about as old school as it gets. I can't imagine they make much money at all, but for me, the user, it's nice to go someplace with a smallish online community where I don't feel like I'm being tracked or have to put up with the zero-QA dumpster fire that is programmatic advertising.

naravara 7y ago
The interesting part is I feel like sites that do this cultivate a lot more trust in the products they’re advertising. It’s fewer impressions maybe, but having a publisher who actually stands by their ad buys does a lot to confer legitimacy, especially for brands or companies that aren’t well known.

keiru 7y ago

Seemingly related: "Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20288768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20288768

ralphc 7y ago

The peak of this was Forbes who made you turn off ads & served you malware; https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-readers-to-turn-off-ad-blockers-promptly-serves-malware https://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-re... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11455031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11455031

aitchnyu 7y ago

OpenX and co throws money in the cat and mouse game to police ads that seem decent but pounces on grandmas in Azerbaijan using a 4 year old Android by a defunct phone maker on Christmas eve. What is the reason for using Javascript instead of a dumb img tag? What is the reason for platforms to allow advertisers to push malware to user instead of their own impression tracking scripts?