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> dark design I wonder how much of Google's revenue is from Foobarbazz Corp buying ads for Foobarbazz searches. The conversion rate for those searches is prob

> dark design I wonder how much of Google's revenue is from Foobarbazz Corp buying ads for Foobarbazz searches. The conversion rate for those searches is probably really high since the consumer was going there anyway. It is like a silent agreement between marketing folks and Google to pretend it is value for money.

flik 4y ago
Google tax. Why such patterns are not outlawed?
- nindalf 4y ago
  Why don’t you think through the implications of your question? You say outlawed. Ok then, write a hypothetical law that would outlaw this behaviour. Remember, this law should be general enough to apply to advertising or internet advertising in general. The more specific it gets (“search engine advertising firm beginning with G”) the less likely it’ll stand up to judicial scrutiny. It would only take a second for you to realise that the answer to your question is “it’s not done because it’s hard to formulate a law that’s fair, will pass judicial review, won’t be circumvented, won’t lead to unintended consequences and will achieve the intended effect”. All that before we get to lobbying. Because even if you formulate this perfect law, there’s still an open question of how you plan to enact this legislation.
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    To be fair to both of you, yes it's a ludicrous proposal but also yes governments might enact it anyways. Most laws these days seem useless at best, Orwellian at worst.
Adverblessly 4y ago
> I wonder how much of Google's revenue is from Foobarbazz Corp buying ads for Foobarbazz searches. I don't know if it is a common practice or just an excpetion, but not that long ago we had this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34218340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34218340 where two competitors of (the FOSS) Kdenlive tried to advertise on "Kdenlive" on various search engines and it seems like "They had them on Google too, but we complained and they were removed.". That made me wonder if it really is true that you must advertise on your own keywords or if you can just complain and get it removed from Google like they were able to do.
- easton 4y ago
  Freakonomics Radio had a really good (two-parter?) episode about whether ads really work, and one of the people they had on was someone who cut eBay's ad spend a ton, and they said the one of the biggest wastes was advertising on the word "eBay". They removed those buys and sure enough people just scrolled down to click on the actual link to eBay. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-2-digital-ep-441/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w...

flik 4y ago

Google tax. Why such patterns are not outlawed?

nindalf 4y ago
Why don’t you think through the implications of your question? You say outlawed. Ok then, write a hypothetical law that would outlaw this behaviour. Remember, this law should be general enough to apply to advertising or internet advertising in general. The more specific it gets (“search engine advertising firm beginning with G”) the less likely it’ll stand up to judicial scrutiny. It would only take a second for you to realise that the answer to your question is “it’s not done because it’s hard to formulate a law that’s fair, will pass judicial review, won’t be circumvented, won’t lead to unintended consequences and will achieve the intended effect”. All that before we get to lobbying. Because even if you formulate this perfect law, there’s still an open question of how you plan to enact this legislation.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  To be fair to both of you, yes it's a ludicrous proposal but also yes governments might enact it anyways. Most laws these days seem useless at best, Orwellian at worst.

Adverblessly 4y ago

> I wonder how much of Google's revenue is from Foobarbazz Corp buying ads for Foobarbazz searches. I don't know if it is a common practice or just an excpetion, but not that long ago we had this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34218340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34218340 where two competitors of (the FOSS) Kdenlive tried to advertise on "Kdenlive" on various search engines and it seems like "They had them on Google too, but we complained and they were removed.". That made me wonder if it really is true that you must advertise on your own keywords or if you can just complain and get it removed from Google like they were able to do.

easton 4y ago
Freakonomics Radio had a really good (two-parter?) episode about whether ads really work, and one of the people they had on was someone who cut eBay's ad spend a ton, and they said the one of the biggest wastes was advertising on the word "eBay". They removed those buys and sure enough people just scrolled down to click on the actual link to eBay. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-2-digital-ep-441/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w...