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Ask HN: Does Google have a way to report scam advertisements?
I got the linked ad [1] show up on a website I visited. It’s a scam for bitcoin trading, which is presented using the same website as our national broadcaster. I tried to report it, but the only option that fit was “inappropriate”
Does Google really have no way to report scams? I am afraid the reviewers will miss it, as inappropriate often refers to sexual decency
This type of scam involving celebrities and fake news articles using national media layouts have been going on for more than a year to my recollection
[1] https://retinasket.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-ZvVl5af6wIVXcq7CB1iWgO2EAEYASAAEgItuPD_BwE https://retinasket.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-ZvVl5af6wIVXcq7CB...
- samdung 6y agoAt this point i'm more worried about the chumbox (taboola shit) scammy ads that appear even on the most reputed media sites.
- firebaze 6y agoWhile agreeing, I'm even more worried that the "taboola shit" seems to gain lots of clicks even on reputable sites. Out of curiosity I followed a few of them, and most of the time the linked content is the cheapest "content" look-a-like possible - still a lot of users appear to click. I wonder if there are any studies regarding shallow content and its apparent appeal.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoThere are entire industries operating around shallow content and it's appeal. But now you've said it we can patiently wait the thousands of freshly minted PhDs to support the obvious.
- sukilot 6y agoAre they scammy or just content you aren't interested in?
- scarlac 6y agoBoth. The headlines link to websites filled with fake articles that relink to shopping sites or directly to those websites despite being unrelated to the ad.
- philliphaydon 6y agoThere’s heaps of scam ads on YouTube, or sponsor spots on videos promoting scams but YouTube doesn’t care. So I doubt even if Google had the ability to report them they would care.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoHuh? Google owns YouTube. They don't care. QED.
- sarajevo 6y agoYou should be able to do this by right clicking the ad or following options on the ad [triangle with the I character, top right, > why this ad > report this ad) - Anyhow, you can achieve the same by clicking the permalink listed below https://support.google.com/google-ads/troubleshooter/4578507?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/troubleshooter/4578507...
- l33tman 6y agoI do this all the time in ads in mobile apps but they always re-appear no matter how you report them in the options. I think the OP complained about fraudulent google search results though - there's no way to report them (been wondering the same myself). Only a "Cached" menu option if you click on the small upside down triangle there.
- eisa01 6y agoOP here, it was a Google Adsense ad served on a normal web page. I reported it using the chevron-button, but didn't think the 4 options were adequate descriptions * Seen this ad multiple times * Ad was inappropriate * Not interested in this ad * Ad covered content It's like they only want to improve their algorithms, not make sure they're not serving law breaking advertisements
- sukilot 6y agoLaw breaking ads are inappropriate.
- techdragon 6y agoInappropriate is a maddeningly vague descriptor. I’ve never felt like it’s accurate enough. Is it inappropriate for the website it’s displayed on, for me as a user, for google ads at all... Is it legally inappropriate, morally inappropriate, ethically inappropriate, or just something I don’t like?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- codeisawesome 6y agoThis is an incredibly annoying problem on YouTube as well. Made me go out and trial Premium so I guess it’s good for metrics by the wrong reasons.
- robjan 6y agoI had to do that because of the sheer amount of softcore porn (ads for Chinese livestream services such as MeMe and MoreIn) in the YouTube adverts in my region.
- blackcat201 6y agoAdsense has one small info button on the top right where you can click and report, however, for Youtube video ads, there's no visible way to report them as well, especially softcore porn. What's worse is that Youtube doesn't care whether the current audience is suitable or not as long as the ads were shown at the intended target ( ie gaming related video )
- j4yav 6y agoGoogle was showing softcore porn images and words on kids videos in Dutch recently, and I couldn't figure out any way to send a note about the ads (just say that they weren't relevant to me).
- faebi 6y agoI recently started to watch a lot of finance and investment videos on youtube and the amount of scam ads I see went up like never before. It‘s just mindblowing how so many different scammers get through this system. There must be tons of people of get cheated like this.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoAh! I recently signed up for US stock trading using my ASX broker, Commonwealth Securities - Commonwealth Bank of Australia's share trading platform. This explains the sudden increase in robocall scam calls and SMS I've been receiving since then. Hadn't put that together till now.
- viraptor 6y agoThe do-not-call register complaints worked magic for me: https://www.donotcall.gov.au/consumers/lodge-a-complaint/ https://www.donotcall.gov.au/consumers/lodge-a-complaint/ Daily calls stopped a day after reporting them.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoI keep forgetting about the DNCR, thank you!
- qwerty1234599 6y agoWhen there's smoke, there's also fire.. if lots of videos exist it means it must be profitable. Probably flies under the radar because the people getting scammed are clueless.
- t0mmyb0y 6y agoYou or I may see them as 'scam' ads, yet what the people are doing isn't technically illegal, just immoral.
- skinkestek 6y agoI finally got rid of some crazy annoying ads after I contacted Google on the ad sales side and pointed out they were basically defrauding their advertisers at this point after I'd clicked "not interested" for years, made sure my ad preferences didn't include the topic and was not aware of anything I had done to trigger those ads besides being an adult male.
- davchana 6y agoHow did you contact them? Curious. Is it some kind of way feedback?
- terrycody 6y agoGoogle is famous for "non-human support", believe it or not. I never seen people successfully contacted a Googler.
- davchana 6y agoYes, exactly, thats why I asked, maybe there is a way. OP said Sales Side, so maybe he is Google's Ad Buying Client?
- skinkestek 6y agoContact form linked somewhere from the ad buyer page I think. In case anyone wonders: No I never got any feedback, except ads are now borderline relevant and doesn't contain many dating site ads. FTR: I block a good chunk of the ads and I'm also somewhat ad-blind. The above is my subjective feeling about the relevance of the ads.
- jacquesm 6y agoWhat ads? Seriously: use an ad blocker.
- amelius 6y agoYou never disable your ad blocker to see content that refuses to show on user agents with an ad blocker installed?
- _-___________-_ 6y agoNo, I haven't come across any content I want to see so much that I'd disable my protection to see it. When I see one of those scummy "disable your adblocker or we won't show you this content" pages, I usually Google the article title and either find a way to see the exact same content without disabling protection, or find another publication that has posted largely the same content. If that doesn't work, I just move on.
- mvanbaak 6y agoTry to load the reader view of those pages. Works most of the times. I even set sites like medium and forbes to autoload the reader view :)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sukilot 6y agoThat sounds like a terrible idea. Why visit a side that has asked you not to visit?
- mkup 6y agoUsually I disable Javascript for such websites (using browser addon which allows enabling/disabling Javascipt on per-domain basis). Usually such websites strive for Google indexability, so their content is perfectly viewable without JS. If it isn't, then I just move on.
- tjpnz 6y agoI was getting served ads through DoubleClick a few years back prompting me to install malware - the kind masquerading as a "security advisory" claiming my device was infected. I tried reporting them on multiple occasions and nothing happened (of course). The solution was to stop using Chrome for Android, switch to Firefox and install the uBlock Origin plugin. Haven't had any issues since.
- bserge 6y agoTry more than a decade. AdSense was filled with scams and botnet software (pay per install, was quite profitable for a few years). Google never cared. I wonder why they've never been investigated/fined for stuff like this (or have they?). I'm thinking their defense is that the fact that there's scams is a legal issue, so go through the legal system...
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoIt's Section 230. They don't care because they're not liable and they keep the profits either way.
- aitchnyu 6y agoNowadays I watch a Youtube video and an ad takes me (I blame fat fingers) to the app's Play Store page.
- eisa01 6y agoOP here: This has been noticed by Norwegian media for some time, but it is still ongoing Apparently they have brought it up with Google and Facebook, but I can't see anything happening, and the options to report ads does not deal with issues such as scam. Where is the social responsibility? https://www.faktisk.no/notiser/aDw/falsk-nrk-artikkel-om-kristofer-hivju https://www.faktisk.no/notiser/aDw/falsk-nrk-artikkel-om-kri... https://www.nettavisen.no/livsstil/var-staude-og-god-morgen-norge-misbrukt-i-bitcoin-reklame/3423650822.html https://www.nettavisen.no/livsstil/var-staude-og-god-morgen-... https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/GGKqyq/dnb-sjef-norske-kjendiser-blir-misbrukt-i-bitcoin-svindel https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/GGKqyq/dnb-sjef-norske-kjendise...
- remote_phone 6y agoIf everyone on HN started clicking on every single ad we saw, would that be enough to break Google’s ad algos? At some point if every single ad is clicked on, then things wouldn’t work right? Is that not the proper solution to this problem? I’ve started doing that to hopefully make Google think I’m a fraudulent user. If tens of thousands of people started clicking on every single ad, it seems like that would be enough to wildly set their algos off and force a re-evaluation of what they are doing. Maybe if it was a concerted plan like “click on every ad month until Google fixes themselves” it might have even more impact.
- viraptor 6y agoThe cost for the click would be adjusted and someone would have to adjust the baseline in their report for a while. I don't think much would change otherwise.
- jefftk 6y agoSounds like you're describing https://adnauseam.io https://adnauseam.io Both the behavior of this extension and the behavior that you describe, however, seem pretty easy to deal with in an automated way? (Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, though I don't know how clickspam is handled)
- danielheath 6y agoYou know what happens to “fraudulent users“? No gmail, no sign in with google, no play store.
- perl4ever 6y agoI started using the inurl: feature to search for things, and Google started telling me I was a bot like every third search and requiring me to do another captcha. It was pretty horrifying; while I get that 99.9% of people don't use it, it was like a glimpse of a future where the AIs watch constantly for anyone who can add 2 + 2 without help and then alarms go off.
- rasz 6y agoMeanwhile there are whole legitimate industries banned from adwords, like repair and data recovery _if_ you arent a huge corporation. "We need to discuss Google's anti-repair advertising discrimination." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBJ2LD-Dao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBJ2LD-Dao Btw Youtube has no problem runing those scam bitcoin ads https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i877ci/those_fake_crypto_currency_scam_livestreams_are https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i877ci/those_fake_... / or pr0n blowjob banners for that matter https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i87jfj/vpn_cumshot_porn_to_advert_on_youtube/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i87jfj/vpn_cumshot...
- sukilot 6y agoI just ran a bunch of example searches that Rossman and iFixit said have no small business ads. I saw a lot of small business ads. Obviously Google isn't fine with policy breaking ads, but they aren't perfect at catching all of them immediately. www.reddit.com doesn't workmcon mobile. Use old.rrddit.com https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i87jfj/vpn_cumshot_porn_to_advert_on_youtube/ https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i87jfj/vpn_cumshot...
- phone8675309 6y agoThe porn banner makes a little more sense when you realize that there is a small but growing number of Internet users that need to use VPNs to bypass nanny state restrictions on access to pornography. Obviously, they’re against Google's Terms of Service and should be removed, but that’s the market that the VPN company is targeting - people looking for porn on YouTube.
- sukilot 6y agoThere is no hardcore porn on YouTube.
- phone8675309 6y agoYes - that’s the point of this ad - targeting the crowd of people that want access to hardcore porn but need a VPN to get it. A significant number of people looking for that view softcore or soft core adjacent porn on YouTube, and this ad (and ads like it) target that crowd.
- notahacker 6y agoFacebook also seems to have a particularly bad record for running this type of obvious scam ad. Think the main result of clicking the report button is that Facebook's algorithm now thinks I have an above average interest in fake news articles about fake celebrity endorsements of get rich quick schemes...
- senthilnayagam 6y agoI get ads on facebook for cheap Bose speakers and software license serial numbers for cheap. there is no way both can be true. wish there was a central repository to submit these potentially scam posts
- Rarok 6y agoNot scam ads but I've been having troubles with adsense ads that redirect the webpage I'm seeing to a copy of the website of my ISP asking to update information about my account. Wasn't able to report it so... If they get the money they don't care to spread scams or malware.
- sukilot 6y agoHow do you know the AdSense ads do that?
- enriquto 6y agoYou should report the scam ad to the website, not to google. The website has chosen to serve this ad on their site (by whatever means) and thus it is their responsibility. If this means that ultimately nobody can use certain rogue ad servers that show scam ads (such as google), so be it.
- zitterbewegung 6y agoI've been flagging them too as scams and they generally get taken down within and hour or two. I tried to report their actions to their ISP but I think I mistyped the email address or something because it got sent back.
- exabrial 6y agoNo, and they don't care either. For instance, you can type in "car locksmith", and get an ad for $10 unlock in your area. If you click the ad, that offer disappears in the actual prices around $100.
- znpy 6y agoGoogle cares less than zero about its paying customers [0], mind you if it cares about you reporting some kind of scam. end users are notoriously not a concern for google, sorry. --- [0]: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165445
- soared 6y agoGoogle/W3C are currently rebuilding much of this ecosystem and you can share your input on github. Project overview: https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandbox https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandb... GitHub: https://github.com/w3c/web-advertising/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/w3c/web-advertising/blob/master/README.md
- williesleg 6y agoGoogle itself is the scam.
- acheron 6y agoMaking effort to deal with scams doesn’t scale.
- missedthecue 6y agoIf you scroll to the bottom of the page on a search query, you'll see a link called "feedback" by settings and help. Submit your report there. I saw an advertisement for counterfeit currency on Google one time. The scammers weren't even trying to hide it or disguise it as collector money or anything. It verbatim said counterfeit money for sale. It linked to some Weebly page selling fake bills at a discount to face value. I took a screenshot and reported it using the feedback form and someone got in touch with me in about 5 hours and they thanked me and said they took it down.
- imotipet 6y agohttps://www.imotipet.com/ https://www.imotipet.com/