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Back in the early 2000s I helped create policy and procedures at Google to stop this kind of thing. Google's early anti-malware policies, extended to ads, and i

Back in the early 2000s I helped create policy and procedures at Google to stop this kind of thing. Google's early anti-malware policies, extended to ads, and internal procedures to make sure we effectively stopped malware ads. That was a long time ago though and it's sad and frustrating to read it's not working so well now. In particular the article points out several big red flags about how malware scanners are automatically finding the site and download are suspicious. It's a shame Google Ads isn't using that information. (As for DownloadStudio, they have a Wikipedia page that looks 100% innocuous. Searching for "DownloadStudio" has Google search offering an inline answer to "Is DownloadStudio safe" with a reference to the website for DownloadStudio saying "yes it's safe". In this case the inline result is actively harmful. https://i.imgur.com/37GzDKe.png https://i.imgur.com/37GzDKe.png)

bcrl 4y ago
It's sad that Google finds it more important to take profits from ads linking to malware downloads than to protect users from harms. I guess the only way that's going to happen is if governments step up and make Google liable for harm caused by ads. I've seen it happen myself with my father. He gets served malware and phishing ads at the top of searches on his iPad for completely innocuous searches like "Apple Canada support", while I get completely different results in the same house from my own devices. There's no way to report these incidents either.
- Tepix 4y ago
  Could it be that the device is already infected with malware-injecting things?
  - bcrl 4y ago
    No, I checked for that multiple times as I was around when that happened. It was an ad served up directly by Google that lead to a phishing website and phone numbers on it. His filter bubble is very different from mine, and it's clear that the peddlers of malware and scams use ad targeting to hit the elderly with ads that try to take advantage of them. This is a major downside of ad targeting: they're more effective for both good and bad purposes. Ads really should be less ephemeral than they are. Sometimes I see an ad I'm interested in but miss it before clicking a link at which point it's gone after hitting the back button. Similarly, if an ad is for a scam, there needs to be a way to go back, find it, and then flag it.
    - IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
      You gave me a fantastic insight Ive been wondering why a loved one is constantly getting phishing emails. Ive been fighting a losing battle using email filters to contain the phishing fraud emails. Your post gave me the idea to clean up his browsing caches. Thank you
      - bcrl 4y ago
        Just login to your own Google account on their device. =-) That'll result in some pretty dramatic changes in the content they see (and probably you too as things get blended over time).
    - WorldMaker 4y ago
      I increasingly believe that there are no legitimate uses of micro-targeted ads and only harmful ones. The only real distinction is whether or not it is harmful to the target (user), the advertiser (failed impressions), and/or the advertisement network (Google allowing malware companies to spend pennies on the dollar to sell bad software malware launchers in turn makes Google look bad). Micro-targeting may go down as a multi-billion dollar industry-wide mistake by the time this plays out past logical extremes like this "most software download ads are now malware launchers and Google can't seem to or doesn't want to fix it".
      - bcrl 4y ago
        I agree on that point. I believe that micro-targeting of ads is how harmful content (outright scams as well as conspiracy theories and other misinformation) is able to get promoted in ways that allow it to proliferate which was not possible in the past. My theory is that back when TV stations and newspapers were locally owned, editorial staff filtered out the extreme and harmful content as a means to protect their own reputation. Being trustworthy was important if the owner was an active member in the community. If you wanted to promote conspiracy theories, the reasonable people who saw those ads would complain about them and go to the editors and owners of the content delivery platforms to get those ads pulled. The whole system was self regulating in a way that online platforms have made impossible. As ownership of content platforms is disconnected from local communities, it becomes more profitable to engage in exploitative behaviour that would not be acceptable on a local scale. Computers simply don't care if you trust them or not, and we the programmers have yet to make that an important factor in how platforms decide which content is promoted to end users. I have no idea how to improve this situation outside of legislation by our governments.
asddubs 4y ago
those results and the wikipedia page seem to be for an unrelated tool also called downloadstudio
- NelsonMinar 4y ago
  You're right, the ones I was seeing are for a product by Conceiva that may be legitimate. downloadstudio.net is something else, so maybe we have trademark infringement on top of all the other Google Ads abuses.
pvg 4y ago
the inline result is actively harmful. I don't understand how Google have got themselves to this spot even though it seems an 'obviously' very serious problem. Both the 'card' and 'inline' results suggest some sort of curation, a greater googly authoritativeness. They introduce a sort of hierarchy of trust - this result is more trustworthy than the potentially less trustworthy generic search result. Then it's all thrown away by these 'curated' results being bad or worse. It's hard to square this with the knowledge there are piles of smart people at Google whose expertise and responsibilities involve exactly that kind of stuff.

bcrl 4y ago

It's sad that Google finds it more important to take profits from ads linking to malware downloads than to protect users from harms. I guess the only way that's going to happen is if governments step up and make Google liable for harm caused by ads. I've seen it happen myself with my father. He gets served malware and phishing ads at the top of searches on his iPad for completely innocuous searches like "Apple Canada support", while I get completely different results in the same house from my own devices. There's no way to report these incidents either.

Tepix 4y ago
Could it be that the device is already infected with malware-injecting things?
- bcrl 4y ago
  No, I checked for that multiple times as I was around when that happened. It was an ad served up directly by Google that lead to a phishing website and phone numbers on it. His filter bubble is very different from mine, and it's clear that the peddlers of malware and scams use ad targeting to hit the elderly with ads that try to take advantage of them. This is a major downside of ad targeting: they're more effective for both good and bad purposes. Ads really should be less ephemeral than they are. Sometimes I see an ad I'm interested in but miss it before clicking a link at which point it's gone after hitting the back button. Similarly, if an ad is for a scam, there needs to be a way to go back, find it, and then flag it.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
    You gave me a fantastic insight Ive been wondering why a loved one is constantly getting phishing emails. Ive been fighting a losing battle using email filters to contain the phishing fraud emails. Your post gave me the idea to clean up his browsing caches. Thank you
    - bcrl 4y ago
      Just login to your own Google account on their device. =-) That'll result in some pretty dramatic changes in the content they see (and probably you too as things get blended over time).
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    I increasingly believe that there are no legitimate uses of micro-targeted ads and only harmful ones. The only real distinction is whether or not it is harmful to the target (user), the advertiser (failed impressions), and/or the advertisement network (Google allowing malware companies to spend pennies on the dollar to sell bad software malware launchers in turn makes Google look bad). Micro-targeting may go down as a multi-billion dollar industry-wide mistake by the time this plays out past logical extremes like this "most software download ads are now malware launchers and Google can't seem to or doesn't want to fix it".
    - bcrl 4y ago
      I agree on that point. I believe that micro-targeting of ads is how harmful content (outright scams as well as conspiracy theories and other misinformation) is able to get promoted in ways that allow it to proliferate which was not possible in the past. My theory is that back when TV stations and newspapers were locally owned, editorial staff filtered out the extreme and harmful content as a means to protect their own reputation. Being trustworthy was important if the owner was an active member in the community. If you wanted to promote conspiracy theories, the reasonable people who saw those ads would complain about them and go to the editors and owners of the content delivery platforms to get those ads pulled. The whole system was self regulating in a way that online platforms have made impossible. As ownership of content platforms is disconnected from local communities, it becomes more profitable to engage in exploitative behaviour that would not be acceptable on a local scale. Computers simply don't care if you trust them or not, and we the programmers have yet to make that an important factor in how platforms decide which content is promoted to end users. I have no idea how to improve this situation outside of legislation by our governments.

asddubs 4y ago

those results and the wikipedia page seem to be for an unrelated tool also called downloadstudio

NelsonMinar 4y ago
You're right, the ones I was seeing are for a product by Conceiva that may be legitimate. downloadstudio.net is something else, so maybe we have trademark infringement on top of all the other Google Ads abuses.

pvg 4y ago

the inline result is actively harmful. I don't understand how Google have got themselves to this spot even though it seems an 'obviously' very serious problem. Both the 'card' and 'inline' results suggest some sort of curation, a greater googly authoritativeness. They introduce a sort of hierarchy of trust - this result is more trustworthy than the potentially less trustworthy generic search result. Then it's all thrown away by these 'curated' results being bad or worse. It's hard to square this with the knowledge there are piles of smart people at Google whose expertise and responsibilities involve exactly that kind of stuff.