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Google search for a local restaurant returns scammer’s ad as top result

430 points by rasz 4y ago

MisterBastahrd 4y ago
I saw this exact same thing happen locally. We have a Ramen restaurant whose squatter website opened before they got their own website up and running, and its SEO is better, too.
- jollyllama 4y ago
  Yeah, it's kind of a "dog bites man" story
Kim_Bruning 4y ago
Recently saw something similar in the Netherlands: Top hit was a scam site for drivers-license medical tests, rest of page was government sites warning about the scam site, but the scam site is still up.
laech 4y ago
I often see scam ads on YouTube as well, they (Google) should really do something about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34943047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34943047
sposeray 4y ago
[dead]
fxtentacle 4y ago
As expected, an excellent read: TLDR: Scammers cloned a restaurant website. Amex gave them a merchant account despite fake address and fake phone number. Google let them advertise the fake restaurant despite none of the data matching Google's knowledge box. And I just love the quote, here in context: "Doug @Rushkoff says that the ethic of today's "entrepreneur" is to #GoMeta - don't provide a product or a service, simply find a way to be a predatory squatter on a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who use those things." https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948931710451712 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948931710451712 (which sadly mirrors my impression with all those #Entrepreneurs that like to tag #Hustle on everything they do, like those: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34921099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34921099 )
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- readthenotes1 4y ago
  I am pretty sure that doctorow how has a better imagination than to believe that "Holy shit do we live in the worst of all possible timelines." We actually live in a pretty good timeline when we complain about ordering Thai food over the internet and the worst that happens is we get our food delivered with some trouble.
  - JanneVee 4y ago
    Wait what? You don't seem to realize the Cyberpunk dystopia we are living in? Yes it is amazing that we can order online! But having a company that is a near monopoly search and decides what is 'true' benefits by an otiose 15% markup that steals from the local economy is not! These are two different things... It is amazing that I can watch videos on youtube for free but it is not awesome that they freely present alcohol ads to alcoholics and it is near impossible to get rid of them unless you are savvy enough to block them and/or pay for youtube premium. It is not okay to have predatory get-rich-quick-schemes categorized in the ads for creators that they can opt out of. It is nice that creators have that option not to advertise something that is designed pray upon vulnerable people, but what the fuck.... if youtube categorize the ads then they should be able to say no to them wholesale and not benefit from that. There are videos get-rich-quick-schemes uploaded that you need to search for that is another ballgame, it is easier to report them and having them removed because they are not giving them money.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - urbandw311er 4y ago
    Yes there’s an element of “first world problems” to all this. But, equally, do you enjoy your paradise when you’re dimly aware you might be living in The Matrix?
  - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
SillyUsername 4y ago
Seems to me to be perfectly legal, if not morally right. Did I miss something? Perhaps not being morally right is something to have outrage about.
- polotics 4y ago
  How is it legal? If you mislead a customer by assuming an identity that is not yours, how is this not identity theft? (not legal) The fraudsters' website says "Kiin Thai eatery - Official Website". Anyways that is for a judge to decide.
  - SillyUsername 4y ago
    Aside from "Official website" they are offering the product from the company that sells it, not a knock off. I could sell Armani, and buy from their site, I'd be an unofficial reseller. The point in general (slight change of position here) is that had they not stated "official", reselling is perfectly fine. As you point out trademark infringing (representing yourself as them by saying official) is not.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      "Besides from the identity fraud, how is this illegal?" The identity fraud is core to the product. Had they not registered a domain that made them sound official and said that they were the other company, nobody would get confused and think they're ordering from the actual company. Armani will tear you up if you set up "armani-losangeles.com" and pretend that you're Armani, even if you don't mention "Official Website".
    - pjc50 4y ago
      > I could sell Armani, and buy from their site, I'd be an unofficial reseller. Poor example, I'm fairly sure that the designer brands are most likely to sue parallel importers and grey marketers.
  - darreninthenet 4y ago
    Representing yourself as something you aren't for an advantage is literally one of the legal definitions of fraud in the UK.
polotics 4y ago
In this instance isn't Google guilty of fraud? They put on their website something that defrauds, it being called "search" makes no difference IMHO. Isn't there in the US a small claims court for the restaurant to seek takedown and compensation for damages?
- samtho 4y ago
  It will likely be harder than you think to find them. KYC is a joke, a regulatory checkbox that must be ticked to not get in trouble with federal authorities.
  - blooalien 4y ago
    > "KYC is a joke, a regulatory checkbox that must be ticked to not get in trouble with federal authorities." Also a law to hoover up more personal information with zero repercussions…
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    You don't need to enforce KYC or a particular verification method by law. Merely making the ad platform liable for any illegal content they get paid to host/serve will make the market resolve the problem immediately.
- izacus 4y ago
  No, the person creating the fake ad is guilty of fraud. Google is guilty of not verifying it enough. Same as Apple/Google aren't guilty of creating malware apps then it slips through, but the predatory ass who coded the app and published it is. Same as Walmart isn't guilty of poisoning people when they stock a product that's spoiled in production, but merely failing to verify proper credentials set up by regulators. I don't know why so many people here and elsewere refuse to hold people creating predatory/fradulent companies accountable , but instead demand that megacorporations control access to your products instead. Which they repeatedly fail and and exploit to enrich themselves at your expense.
  - dTal 4y ago
joemi 4y ago
The most surprising thing about this is that someone as internet-savvy as Doctorow doesn't just skip over the ads but instead clicks on them. That's just asking for trouble.
- polotics 4y ago
  Wow so the victim is guilty because they were not clever/awake/focussed enough? How does this logic work for victims of other crimes and misdemeanours?
  - luckylion 4y ago
    > How does this logic work for victims of other crimes and misdemeanours? If a security expert has "password123" as their password for all services, everyone would be surprised unless he had been previously identified as a fool. That someone tech-savvy doesn't use an adblocker is surprising to me, too.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  Well, in his defence - he was really FUCKING hungry!
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  Happens to me, occasionally, and I’m as smart/cynical as they come. It’s embarrassing, but I have managed to avoid being really ripped off. The worst one, was many years ago, when I responded to a “your domain name is available” email. I got the domain, eventually, but I probably paid double its worth, and had to get into an e-shouting match with the scammers, who were trying to lease me the name, as opposed to sell it to me (they do this, so they can quadruple the cost, as soon as you set up some infrastructure on the name). They gave it to me, in the end, because I made it clear that I was gonna be one hell of a PItA to keep as a “customer.” Welcome to “being human.”
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
  I think you're missing the point: a journalist with an interest in internet things and "chokepoint capitalism" comes across an everyday example of these, and writes about it, using his experience as a starting point, is not a surprising outcome at all. Of course he's savvy, that's how he's placed to explain it to less savvy people. Of course he could just avoid it. You or I might (with a 98% success rate maybe), and then get on with our internet-savvy day job. But doing this is his internet-savvy day job. And good that it is someone's.
gumby 4y ago
Parasites like this have also colonized plumbing, locksmiths etc, as has been discussed on this site in the past. Seems like straight up fraud to me.
- sneak 4y ago
  A lot of the institutions who historically would have prevented fraud seem to have abdicated their responsibilities in the last few dozen years. Doctorow calls them out in the thread: AmEx and Google in particular.
  - izacus 4y ago
    Calling out a megacorporation for not defending your rights is oxymoronic by the extreme. You didn't stop other products from killing people by asking Walmart nicely to make sure it's safe. Isn't there a small thing called "regulators" for this? Or is US government now so fundamentally broken that it can't even provide its basic function anymore and has to be replaced by "pretty-please" appeals to megacorporations?
    - aychedee 4y ago
      It's broken by design. AKA regulatory capture by business. Ever since America made corruption (paying money to politicians) legal it's just been downhill. Enjoy!
      - fallingknife 4y ago
        Regulatory capture has nothing to do with corruption. Regulatory capture is when businesses benefit from complex regulation because the competitive moat that the regulation gives them is more valuable than the cost (so high that only huge companies can afford it) to comply. Large businesses like moats and regulators like to regulate. No coordination required. Actual corruption, at least in the US, is much less common.
    - bell-cot 4y ago
      > Isn't there a small thing called "regulators" for this? Or is the US... The latter, partly. But a bigger problem is that actually-functional government is no longer part of the worldview of most of the public. Ditto for serious consequences for the responsible elected officials, when government fails at its basic functions. Without those things, it is really not possible to sustain a high-functioning government.
unxdfa 4y ago
[flagged]
- samtho 4y ago
  This reeks of victim blaming. We should be able to go about our lives and not get scammed trying to order food from the local Thai food place.
  - unxdfa 4y ago
    Yes agree with that which is exactly what the second half of my post is about. Google should not be advertising competitors when you directly search for someone. If you search for Thai restaurant then yes. But not for a specific business. And only legitimate verified businesses which are not fronts for this behaviour. But really, is the famous Doctorow not using an ad blocker in 2023?
- kzrdude 4y ago
  Doctorow is blaming Google here - and they are selling the unconstrained advertising service.
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
  > I expected better from the author. better than an essay explaining the scam and digging into root causes? For the benefit of less sophisticated people. But yeah, a journalist interested in this specific topic could have run an adblock instead.
Krisjohn 4y ago
I really must get a good bookmark manager going again.
- thiht 4y ago
  Or an adblocker.
antihero 4y ago
I’m just amazed Cory Doctorow of all people doesn’t use uBlock and got duped by this. I’ve always seen Google Ads as about as reliable as the fake download buttons on crappy file websites. You tune them out or block them.
- izacus 4y ago
  I'm sure he personally does use it, but that doesn't stop him from highlighting these issues and talking about it. That's what he's been all about for years now.
  - mooncakes_ooohh 4y ago
    Also it could have been a friend or family member finding it first. I use browser based adblockers on all my devices. My partner doesn't always. Luckily I have Pi-hole setup to at least block these links on my home network.
  - dxuh 4y ago
    The thread states that he ordered there by accident. I don't think you do that to highlight something.
- _nalply 4y ago
  We shouldn't need to use uBlock. It is easy to assign blame to victims. This has happened to bycicle owners. If you don't lock your bike it's your fault your bike gets stolen. But theft is illegal. Theft is if someone wants to take something that doesn't belong to him and then executes the taking. Locks don't change this fact. It just makes the execution of the crime more difficult. I have a vision of an utopia where people can leave all things unlocked. If they get stolen, the thief gets identified immediately and he has to give the things back. No punishment at all or only a token punishment. This should work because sanctions are not neccessary if no harm was done. Today we punish caught thieves somewhat harshly because we need to deter people from becoming thieves. If we can stop thefts just after the fact, token punishment will suffice. If someone repeatedly tries to steal things in that utopia we could offer therapy or try to find out the underlying cause of the attempted thefts. That's utopia: everything works out perfectly for everybody (shrugs). Today we lock our browsing experience using uBlock just because we have to. We also have to lock our bikes, because we have to. Sorry for the tangent.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
maCDzP 4y ago
I like this guy. I chuckled when he wrote “guaran-fucking-tee”.
sokoloff 4y ago
The billing descriptor issue doesn’t seem like a KYC violation or Amex failure to me. Instead of using a static descriptor “Parasitic Middleman, LLC”, they send a dynamic descriptor for each transaction to tell the user “KIINTHAILA: OK, that was my Thai order; yeah, that was me”. It’s no different than when you see an order number on your statement or other dynamic text. I don’t approve of the business practice (and take care to avoid it with my local takeout places), but I don’t think it’s an Amex failure here.
ezekiel68 4y ago
> just following in the shoes of DoorDash and Uber Eats Typical error of his, going "A Bridge Too Far". He points out something interesting and important to lure you in and then hand-gestures grandly toward an industry/practice that he feels we should all question. Because, you know, brilliant genius Cory Doctorow.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  Uber and DoorDash did exactly the same thing as what you somehow find “interesting and important” when done by someone else, but you don’t care. Because, you know, brilliant disruption tech? Or what? https://support.google.com/business/thread/5820393/doordash-has-hijacked-my-google-business-page-and-i-can-t-edit-or-delete-the-order-link-away?hl=en https://support.google.com/business/thread/5820393/doordash-...
- OwlsParlay 4y ago
  This is something some delivery apps have been accused of doing though. https://www.eater.com/2020/1/29/21113416/grubhub-seamless-kin-khao-online-delivery-mistake-doordash https://www.eater.com/2020/1/29/21113416/grubhub-seamless-ki...
- nehal3m 4y ago
  I find it absolutely hilarious that you're doing the exact thing you're railing against in two sentences flat. Also, I'll give you that he does hand-gesture grandly in this Twitter thread, but he co-wrote a whole book about it called Chokepoint Capitalism. There's a lot more detail about it there, and the logic there applies here.
- rpgbr 4y ago
  Except it’s an industry/practice of the big ones: * https://www.eater.com/2020/1/29/21113416/grubhub-seamless-kin-khao-online-delivery-mistake-doordash https://www.eater.com/2020/1/29/21113416/grubhub-seamless-ki... * https://www.eater.com/2015/11/11/9714840/in-n-out-doordash-delivery-lawsuit https://www.eater.com/2015/11/11/9714840/in-n-out-doordash-d...
planede 4y ago
I'm not sure if this is helpful, but Google has a trademark complaint form specifically for this kind of situation: https://services.google.com/inquiry/aw_tmcomplaint https://services.google.com/inquiry/aw_tmcomplaint
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  Hilarious! Google opens the floodgates to the spam-dam, but here's a bucket and a ladder you can use in case you want to put some of the water back.
perihelions 4y ago
Simple legislative fix: entitle the victim (small business) to quickly and easily claim a trademark infringement on an ad, and claw back 100% of Google's revenue on that ad. And let Google be civilly liable, if they choose to contest such a trademark claim and they're in the wrong. Inspired by YouTube's DMCA claim system (or my superficial understanding of it). If there's a "bug bounty" on fraud, there will be an enthusiastic market for identifying it. If ad fraud doesn't reliably pay, the fraud market will be disincentivized. Finally, Google itself will have incentives less mis-aligned with its users'; its current incentive system being "the fraudsters pay us more; therefore we love fraud!"
- specialist 4y ago
  Any chance you have model legislation (for me to use)? Two years ago, I got fluffed up about scammers claiming unclaimed businesses. Like the food delivery startups (like Doctorow mentions). I started talking to my reps (city council, state) but haven't gotten any further. And I don't know where to start drafting the legislation. With some sort of resolution or model legislation, I can shop it around, get the ball rolling. Like chamber of commerce, some scammed businesses, my representatives. Thanks.
- psychlops 4y ago
  > If there's a "bug bounty" on fraud, there will be an enthusiastic market for identifying it. Not to mention a cottage industry of creating then "solving" the ad fraud. I imagine Google's solution for this would be 100% Yelp.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  The FTC has jurisdiction here. No new law is required. Complaints need to be made.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hunter2_ 4y ago
    I think the "fix" proposed here is that it be as frictionless as sending a DMCA notice. Is what you're talking about that easy? Sounds like we need scammy middleware between regular people and the complaint system to keep complaints flowing, monetize later!
srmarm 4y ago
The answer from Google's point of view is for the Thai restaurant to pay more for the advert so they are at the top of the rankings. When Google stopped putting a meaningful distinction between paid results and organic results that was a line for me. It's fine to have an adverts - you have to pay the bills but when the adverts become the results it's just pay to play rentseeking by Google and the product is now untrustworthy and on a downward spiral as a result. Amazon search results have taken a similar route, you can search for something specific and get something totally unsuitable as top result now.
- Tozen 4y ago
  Exactly. Google results can't be trusted, because it's clear they are very manipulated, based on their cut of profits and siphoned data that's used for user targeting. It has reached the point of being suspect, significantly detrimental, and increasingly criminal. And an argument can be made that they are actively suppressing competition, so that useful alternatives are not viable.
davidkuennen 4y ago
It has always boggled my mind that you're even allowed to publish ads targeting other companies brand names as keywords without being the verified owner of that company. But I understand Google here. It's probably their single biggest income stream. Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. More than for any other keyword by far. And I imagine many others do the same.
- kennethh 4y ago
  It was not allowed in the early days of google adsense, but guess it was to profitable to not allow it.
- urbandw311er 4y ago
  This is an underrated comment. Google are enabling fraud on a massive scale by permitting the hijacking of established names and brands. Often brands or names that some small family company has worked for years to build a reputation for. We do indeed live in a world where tech and capitalism have birthed some sort of horrific offspring that’s choking us all.
  - fmajid 4y ago
    To be fair, in this case it's more racketeering.
  - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
    But that's only part of it. Google will also happily serve up ads for fake bank websites that will steal your credentials. Google will happily serve up ads for a lot of malicious content on the Internet. Google are not only making it worse because of advertising, they're making it worse by facilitating scammers and fraudsters and various other criminals. All because their systems are so automated as to eschew any review that might actually make advertising on the Internet slightly less distasteful (and maybe the FBI wouldn't be recommending the choking off of Google's primary income stream)
    - 4y ago
bityard 4y ago
In Google maps, the top result for a locksmith in my city is a company that doesn't actually exist. The company has no website, just a toll-free number. The business name doesn't match anything in the state records. If you zoom in, the address given is literally in some kind of alley. The business has 4.5 stars and all of the reviews are in vague, broken English that never contain any details about the service or why they needed it. My guess is that when you call them, they take your info and then call a real locksmith in the area and pocket the difference.
- acatton 4y ago
  CBC's Marketplace did an investigation about this years ago. https://youtu.be/bvlzZnhZhrc?t=858 https://youtu.be/bvlzZnhZhrc?t=858 TL;DW: this is widespread in most cities in Canada. Scammers just setup fake businesses on google to have your nearest locksmith be some generic chain. I would expect this to be the same for the US.
- Cenk 4y ago
  The “Reply All” podcast had an episode about this: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2ho87 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2ho87
- segmondy 4y ago
  Almost all Google search for businesses are "scam". If you search for locksmith, plumber, heating and cooling, lawn, mechanic. It's all fronts often in eastern europe masking like local business and taking a hefty cut.
mellosouls 4y ago
Reminds me of the guy who made his shed the top rated restaurant on Trip Advisor https://www.vice.com/en/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor https://www.vice.com/en/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-to... https://wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich https://wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich
- CaptainZapp 4y ago
  That was incredibly funny. I can even agree with Trip Advisors' reasoning that their main concern are not fake restaurants, but dodgy reviews. Nevertheless, this never should have been allowed to slip through the cracks. It wasn't just a make pretend great London eatery on Trip Advisors. It was fucking number 1 in a city with literally 10s of thousands rated restaurants.
  - xhkkffbf 4y ago
    Think about it. Pushing a fake restaurant to number 1 is not that hard. No real people eat at it and so no real person writes a less-than-five-star review. Real restaurants have off nights. Or maybe they have a snooty patron that is overly picky. Real restaurants-- even the best of them-- get a few one star reviews. So if you're looking at averages, there's no way that real can compete with fake.
    - saulpw 4y ago
      Maybe "average rating" shouldn't be a more-heavily-weighted metric than "confirmed existence of dining establishment".
gmerc 4y ago
You won’t believe what the top 5 results for chatgpt are
- Loughla 4y ago
  I just did that search. Ublock origin in firefox returned, in order. 1. openai.com, 2. openai.com blogpost, 3. ChatGPT Wikipedia, 4. ChatGPT story on digitaltrends.com, 5. ChatGPT article on ZDNet.com. Clean firefox with no ublock, in order. 1. openai.com, 2. ChatGPT Wikipedia, 3. ChatGPT story on digitaltrends.com, 4. ChatGPT article on ZDNet.com, 5. ChatGPT article on businessinsider.com. What am I missing?
vintermann 4y ago
The scammer has to receive money, and they have to spend money to buy ads. This is usually not something you can do anonymously. I'm wondering why it isn't shut down already, and I wonder how much of Google's ad revenue comes from this sort of thing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
caseyf 4y ago
Wow, this happened with me with my local dumpling place a few days ago. I noticed the website was weird and I found my way to the correct one.
urbandw311er 4y ago
This is even worse in developing countries. I tried booking a hotel in the Albanian Riviera the other day. Good luck finding any of the hotels’ actual websites, the moneymiddlemen have got their first…
jeffbee 4y ago
I’d like to know what the author or any of these commenters think the process would look like that would have actually stopped this advertiser. Some guy wants to advertise their Thai restaurant. They’ve got the domain name, the site is up, it works. What else is the ad marketplace supposed to check? It’s not like you can’t have the same name as another Thai restaurant. After all, the domain registrar gave them that name. So what would it look like?
- mcculley 4y ago
  If my paid ad for my restaurant is right above the organic search result, how is Google adding any value?
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Hypothetically? You just recently moved your site to a new domain name (your reasons are your own) and you want to advertise the new one even though the old one is “organically” first. You want to control the snippet in a way that’s impossible with organic search. Among other hypothetical situations.
    - mcculley 4y ago
      Google could notice the paid link goes to the same page as the organic link and choose not to charge the advertiser as they are obviously not adding or creating value. Instead, because Google chooses to charge for that first link, it creates a situation where the business owner knows they have to outbid the competition to get the link above their own. This is great for Google’s shareholders, bad for the restaurant.
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  It would look a little bit like a company that's got a fuckton of relatively well curated data about the world and maybe combining that data with some kind of "artificial intelligence" to maybe produce something useful to society like a reduction in the number of scams it gives advertising space to. But maybe that's just me being shortsighted and valuing benevolence over revenue.
gorbachev 4y ago
How many impressions or clicks without a sale would it take to make the scammer's Google ads non profitable?
- chrisbolt 4y ago
  Are you suggesting fighting fraud with fraud?
reportgunner 4y ago
All ads are scam.
giarc 4y ago
The problem is real but this guys response is a bit over the top. In one tweet [1] he claims Google should know which one is the real restaurant. Does he think there is a person at Google reviewing all search results? Does he not understand that it's possible for two restaurants to exist with the same name? Does he not get that there are billions of searches with billions of search permutations done every minute. 1 - And why the actual FUCK is @GoogleAds accepting these scam artists' ads for a business that they already have a knowledge box for?! Google KNOWS what the real KIIN restaurant is, and yet they are accepting payment to put a fake KIIN listing two slots ABOVE the real one.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  That's not a knowledge box. It's a local search result. Also, there are about fifty billion Thai restaurants in America called "Kiin". Finally, the verified owner of the Burbank restaurant posts messages on Google Maps advertising order online via a third-party site. I truly do not understand how people think Google can figure out that this third party is allowed to advertise take out for this restaurant but that site can't.
- cldellow 4y ago
  I get that it's a hard problem. I don't think this is about "reviewing all search results". This is about reviewing the people who are paying you money to run ads. In this case, there were likely plenty of signals of fraud. This advertiser was advertising to multiple domains, and each domain was relatively young. Those domains would likely also have had low organic traffic. Here are some candidate solutions. I haven't thought these through deeply. This is spur-of-the-moment thinking. A multibillion dollar company could hopefully do better than me. 1 - Google could review new paid domains. In this case, the fraudulent site posted contact information, including the phone number for the real business! Phoning that number would have revealed the fraud immediately. 2 - Google could generally validate the identity of its advertisers. Advertising for a business? Cool, let's see some incorporation or tax paperwork. 3 - Google could impose a cost for being fraudulent. Want to run ads? Cool, we'll take a $1,000 retainer for each top-level domain you want to advertise. When you close your account, you can have it back after a 90-day waiting period. If we bounce you for fraud, we'll keep it. I used to work in ad tech. We reviewed the people we entered into financial relationships with, because we knew their bad behaviour could affect us. Google could do similarly.
aembleton 4y ago
Google have accepted these ads for ages, probably to try and get the actual business to pony up money for ads that are ranked higher. This happened to my partner after she wanted to book a Ryanair flight. Typed Ryanair into Chrome on her phone, clicked the first link that looked very much like Ryanair and paid for tickets. I hope Google get enough money from these sites to make it worth it.
oftenwrong 4y ago
I've noticed that Slice ( https://slicelife.com/ https://slicelife.com/ ) hijacks Google Maps listings like this. They setup a fraudulent website for a local pizzeria, then suggests their website to Google Maps. Google Maps will, at least in some cases, accept that fraudulent suggestion. As a result, Slice becomes a leeching middleman in the pizza order. I wrote a comment about it before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347930
mrbombastic 4y ago
Google search is getting worse and worse for this. I was in Argentina over the last month, I am not sure it is the norm but every time I performed a search instead of the usual 1 or 2 sponsored links there were 7 or 8, effectively pushing the real search results below the fold. The best was if I searched for google docs the top sponsored links were scam sites pretending to be google docs. The advertising business doesn’t even seem to care about protecting the rest of google, a small restaurant doesn’t stand a chance.
- tankerkiller125 4y ago
  I'm in the USA, the first 6 listings are all ads, and it's been like that for at least 4 months. It's so bad I legit switched to Bing.
dvngnt_ 4y ago
Same thing for many crypto services. Never use google search without adblock. The FBI was right
VLM 4y ago
The problem with trademarks and marketing slogans is "kiin thai" more or less translates to "come here to eat thai" more or less. I think the problem with most of the discussion about this "event" is most of the people with strong opinions seem to think "Kiin" is some dude's last name or a dish or a city name or something. It would be like trying to trademark and lawyer up the phrase "Food Store" or the word "Burger" in the USA.
- mattigames 4y ago
  Not really, by being a word used on a different country where they don't speak the language there is no space for confusion, it would be like trademarking "yonggan" in USA and saying that it is invalid because it means "bravery" in Chinese.
thiht 4y ago
Don't people use adblockers anymore? I swear there was a time where EVERYONE used one, what happened? And why are there now people that seem to actively avoid adblockers? This is one of the reasons why I don't want to see ANY ads. I don't care if an ad doesn't track me, I don't want to see it because it can still be harmful.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  I think "Everyone used one" is particular to a nerdy / technically-very-literate section of population. It may seem that 15-20 years ago it was different, but it is likely because 15-20 years ago, nerdy / technically-very-literate were simply a higher proportion of people who were on the internet. If I look at my non nerdy friends over last 20 years: 1. None of them are even aware of ad blockers 2. They'll claim "ads don't bother them" / they don't need one 3. They predominantly use phones and it can be tricky to install a working ad blocker () and 4. Yes they'll fall victims to ad scams - I didn't say they weren't internally contradictory people :P (): Yes it IS tricky to install ad blocker to a non-nerdy person. They need to learn what is it, why do you use one, how do you install one that's not a scam in itself!, how do you manage one, what are the limitations, how do I update it, which browser should I use, why doesn't my favourite porn-gambling-bingo-site work anymore, etc etc. I myself have ad blockers on my computer but have constantly failed to integrate a reliable ad blocker into my phone use cases.
- DanAtC 4y ago
  No plugins allowed on the default Android browser Chrome.
matbilodeau 4y ago
Problem with Google ads ? use an ad blocker, even the FBI recommends it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34916239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34916239 Need more convincing ? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34650366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34650366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34641328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34641328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34557354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34557354
shas3 4y ago
In India, Google search for a pretty specific string, "<nearest hospital's name> ambulance phone number," showed up a bunch of scammy ads. In our distraught state (an elderly relative had just had a fall), we accidentally called the top ad which turned out to be a scam ambulance service. A beat up van showed up, without any EMT, a sketchy stretcher without straps, and no tracks or fasteners to hold it down inside the van. We were outraged and asked them to leave immediately. They demanded money to leave, and left only when we threatened to call the police on them. We realized our mistake and scrolled down to the actual results and called the reputed local hospital which sent a properly equipped legit ambulance. Thankfully it was a simple fracture and the lost time did not lead to dangerous complications. But this could have been fatal if the emergency was more serious. When I returned to the US, I tried searching for ambulances, and Google conspicuously avoids showing ads and suggests calling 9-1-1.
- tankerkiller125 4y ago
  Sounds like India needs a single number for all emergency services instead of the fractured system they have now.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    It also sounds like Google knows to do the right thing when the country government they operate in force them to.
    - rhino369 4y ago
      Maybe. But it's easier to say "dial 911" when a country has 911. If India doesn't have something like 911, what is google supposed to recommend? Call 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3!
      - kevviiinn 4y ago
        I don't know, google maps seems to find the phone numbers for places pretty easily. Why is search any different?
shadowgovt 4y ago
> And why the actual FUCK is @GoogleAds accepting these scam artists' ads for a business that they already have a knowledge box for?! Google KNOWS what the real KIIN restaurant is, and yet they are accepting payment to put a fake KIIN listing two slots ABOVE the real one. For the same reason a Yelp result shows up as the second item on the page: Google's never (to my knowledge) had a policy against advertising on keywords associated with another firm. It is, in fact, a common way to get out in front of a company that is riding on brand-name recognition; advertising 101. ... but Google is having a recurring problem that users can't tell ads apart from organic results anymore, and if they don't do something they're at serious risk of losing reputation on search (which is in a precarious place right now). My recommendation would be to go back to yellow-boxing ads. (ETA: If Mr. Doctorow is meaning the emphasis to be placed on "scam artists", as in "Why can't Google tell these are scammers"... I guarantee when Google goes to that page they don't see a scam site. Masking is an old tactic. It used to be the case that Google had good countermeasures against masking, but as of late it seems like something has gone amiss with their ability to detect scams reliably, or volume has saturated their capacity, or it was always this bad and we're just in a media cycle right now... Insufficient infromation for me to be able to tell).
- kritiko 4y ago
  > Google's never (to my knowledge) had a policy against advertising on keywords associated with another firm. I think cloning a website would probably fall under their misrepresentation policy. “We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses.”
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    It definitely does and that's a scam. What I mean is that there's no policy stopping KIIN from advertising on "PF Changs" as a keyword because they want people to know there are alternatives to the national chain option.
georgeburdell 4y ago
There are way more egregious ones. I searched “fedex tracking” and the top link was a .in URL. I’m American
31337Logic 4y ago
Oh, it's for a thing called "money".
TheReveller 4y ago
Scammers also do this for searches like 'aircanada' (no spaces), including sometimes impersonating the official website while telling you to call a support number as the website is down.
PudgyWudge200 4y ago
Malvertising certainly appears to be the flavour of the month for threat actors. Must've seen a half dozen articles on fake ad sites for cloud vendors and various services in the last couple of weeks alone.
a4isms 4y ago
Doug @Rushkoff says that the ethic of today's "entrepreneur" is to #GoMeta - don't provide a product or a service, simply find a way to be a predatory squatter on a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who use those things. —https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948931710451712 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948931710451712 ---------- Alice: “Is Cory talking about these predatory fake restaurants? Or Google itself?” Beth: “Yes?”
- jareklupinski 4y ago
  yup that was my kneejerk too, literally the definition of 'middleman' the only counter-point I have is when I used to sell demonstration boards: they cost me almost nothing to produce and I designed them in minutes, but people who bought them said I saved them R&D time in the long run (open source)

430 points by rasz 4y ago

I saw this exact same thing happen locally. We have a Ramen restaurant whose squatter website opened before they got their own website up and running, and its SEO is better, too.

jollyllama 4y ago
Yeah, it's kind of a "dog bites man" story

Kim_Bruning 4y ago

Recently saw something similar in the Netherlands: Top hit was a scam site for drivers-license medical tests, rest of page was government sites warning about the scam site, but the scam site is still up.

laech 4y ago

I often see scam ads on YouTube as well, they (Google) should really do something about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34943047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34943047

sposeray 4y ago

[dead]

fxtentacle 4y ago

As expected, an excellent read: TLDR: Scammers cloned a restaurant website. Amex gave them a merchant account despite fake address and fake phone number. Google let them advertise the fake restaurant despite none of the data matching Google's knowledge box. And I just love the quote, here in context: "Doug @Rushkoff says that the ethic of today's "entrepreneur" is to #GoMeta - don't provide a product or a service, simply find a way to be a predatory squatter on a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who use those things." https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948931710451712 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948931710451712 (which sadly mirrors my impression with all those #Entrepreneurs that like to tag #Hustle on everything they do, like those: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34921099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34921099 )

deleted 4y ago
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readthenotes1 4y ago
I am pretty sure that doctorow how has a better imagination than to believe that "Holy shit do we live in the worst of all possible timelines." We actually live in a pretty good timeline when we complain about ordering Thai food over the internet and the worst that happens is we get our food delivered with some trouble.
- JanneVee 4y ago
  Wait what? You don't seem to realize the Cyberpunk dystopia we are living in? Yes it is amazing that we can order online! But having a company that is a near monopoly search and decides what is 'true' benefits by an otiose 15% markup that steals from the local economy is not! These are two different things... It is amazing that I can watch videos on youtube for free but it is not awesome that they freely present alcohol ads to alcoholics and it is near impossible to get rid of them unless you are savvy enough to block them and/or pay for youtube premium. It is not okay to have predatory get-rich-quick-schemes categorized in the ads for creators that they can opt out of. It is nice that creators have that option not to advertise something that is designed pray upon vulnerable people, but what the fuck.... if youtube categorize the ads then they should be able to say no to them wholesale and not benefit from that. There are videos get-rich-quick-schemes uploaded that you need to search for that is another ballgame, it is easier to report them and having them removed because they are not giving them money.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- urbandw311er 4y ago
  Yes there’s an element of “first world problems” to all this. But, equally, do you enjoy your paradise when you’re dimly aware you might be living in The Matrix?
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago

SillyUsername 4y ago

Seems to me to be perfectly legal, if not morally right. Did I miss something? Perhaps not being morally right is something to have outrage about.

polotics 4y ago
How is it legal? If you mislead a customer by assuming an identity that is not yours, how is this not identity theft? (not legal) The fraudsters' website says "Kiin Thai eatery - Official Website". Anyways that is for a judge to decide.
- SillyUsername 4y ago
  Aside from "Official website" they are offering the product from the company that sells it, not a knock off. I could sell Armani, and buy from their site, I'd be an unofficial reseller. The point in general (slight change of position here) is that had they not stated "official", reselling is perfectly fine. As you point out trademark infringing (representing yourself as them by saying official) is not.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    "Besides from the identity fraud, how is this illegal?" The identity fraud is core to the product. Had they not registered a domain that made them sound official and said that they were the other company, nobody would get confused and think they're ordering from the actual company. Armani will tear you up if you set up "armani-losangeles.com" and pretend that you're Armani, even if you don't mention "Official Website".
  - pjc50 4y ago
    > I could sell Armani, and buy from their site, I'd be an unofficial reseller. Poor example, I'm fairly sure that the designer brands are most likely to sue parallel importers and grey marketers.
- darreninthenet 4y ago
  Representing yourself as something you aren't for an advantage is literally one of the legal definitions of fraud in the UK.

polotics 4y ago

In this instance isn't Google guilty of fraud? They put on their website something that defrauds, it being called "search" makes no difference IMHO. Isn't there in the US a small claims court for the restaurant to seek takedown and compensation for damages?

samtho 4y ago
It will likely be harder than you think to find them. KYC is a joke, a regulatory checkbox that must be ticked to not get in trouble with federal authorities.
- blooalien 4y ago
  > "KYC is a joke, a regulatory checkbox that must be ticked to not get in trouble with federal authorities." Also a law to hoover up more personal information with zero repercussions…
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  You don't need to enforce KYC or a particular verification method by law. Merely making the ad platform liable for any illegal content they get paid to host/serve will make the market resolve the problem immediately.
izacus 4y ago
No, the person creating the fake ad is guilty of fraud. Google is guilty of not verifying it enough. Same as Apple/Google aren't guilty of creating malware apps then it slips through, but the predatory ass who coded the app and published it is. Same as Walmart isn't guilty of poisoning people when they stock a product that's spoiled in production, but merely failing to verify proper credentials set up by regulators. I don't know why so many people here and elsewere refuse to hold people creating predatory/fradulent companies accountable , but instead demand that megacorporations control access to your products instead. Which they repeatedly fail and and exploit to enrich themselves at your expense.
- dTal 4y ago

joemi 4y ago

The most surprising thing about this is that someone as internet-savvy as Doctorow doesn't just skip over the ads but instead clicks on them. That's just asking for trouble.

polotics 4y ago
Wow so the victim is guilty because they were not clever/awake/focussed enough? How does this logic work for victims of other crimes and misdemeanours?
- luckylion 4y ago
  > How does this logic work for victims of other crimes and misdemeanours? If a security expert has "password123" as their password for all services, everyone would be surprised unless he had been previously identified as a fool. That someone tech-savvy doesn't use an adblocker is surprising to me, too.
doctor_eval 4y ago
Well, in his defence - he was really FUCKING hungry!
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
Happens to me, occasionally, and I’m as smart/cynical as they come. It’s embarrassing, but I have managed to avoid being really ripped off. The worst one, was many years ago, when I responded to a “your domain name is available” email. I got the domain, eventually, but I probably paid double its worth, and had to get into an e-shouting match with the scammers, who were trying to lease me the name, as opposed to sell it to me (they do this, so they can quadruple the cost, as soon as you set up some infrastructure on the name). They gave it to me, in the end, because I made it clear that I was gonna be one hell of a PItA to keep as a “customer.” Welcome to “being human.”
SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
I think you're missing the point: a journalist with an interest in internet things and "chokepoint capitalism" comes across an everyday example of these, and writes about it, using his experience as a starting point, is not a surprising outcome at all. Of course he's savvy, that's how he's placed to explain it to less savvy people. Of course he could just avoid it. You or I might (with a 98% success rate maybe), and then get on with our internet-savvy day job. But doing this is his internet-savvy day job. And good that it is someone's.

gumby 4y ago

Parasites like this have also colonized plumbing, locksmiths etc, as has been discussed on this site in the past. Seems like straight up fraud to me.

sneak 4y ago
A lot of the institutions who historically would have prevented fraud seem to have abdicated their responsibilities in the last few dozen years. Doctorow calls them out in the thread: AmEx and Google in particular.
- izacus 4y ago
  Calling out a megacorporation for not defending your rights is oxymoronic by the extreme. You didn't stop other products from killing people by asking Walmart nicely to make sure it's safe. Isn't there a small thing called "regulators" for this? Or is US government now so fundamentally broken that it can't even provide its basic function anymore and has to be replaced by "pretty-please" appeals to megacorporations?
  - aychedee 4y ago
    It's broken by design. AKA regulatory capture by business. Ever since America made corruption (paying money to politicians) legal it's just been downhill. Enjoy!
    - fallingknife 4y ago
      Regulatory capture has nothing to do with corruption. Regulatory capture is when businesses benefit from complex regulation because the competitive moat that the regulation gives them is more valuable than the cost (so high that only huge companies can afford it) to comply. Large businesses like moats and regulators like to regulate. No coordination required. Actual corruption, at least in the US, is much less common.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    > Isn't there a small thing called "regulators" for this? Or is the US... The latter, partly. But a bigger problem is that actually-functional government is no longer part of the worldview of most of the public. Ditto for serious consequences for the responsible elected officials, when government fails at its basic functions. Without those things, it is really not possible to sustain a high-functioning government.

unxdfa 4y ago

[flagged]

samtho 4y ago
This reeks of victim blaming. We should be able to go about our lives and not get scammed trying to order food from the local Thai food place.
- unxdfa 4y ago
  Yes agree with that which is exactly what the second half of my post is about. Google should not be advertising competitors when you directly search for someone. If you search for Thai restaurant then yes. But not for a specific business. And only legitimate verified businesses which are not fronts for this behaviour. But really, is the famous Doctorow not using an ad blocker in 2023?
kzrdude 4y ago
Doctorow is blaming Google here - and they are selling the unconstrained advertising service.
SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
> I expected better from the author. better than an essay explaining the scam and digging into root causes? For the benefit of less sophisticated people. But yeah, a journalist interested in this specific topic could have run an adblock instead.

Krisjohn 4y ago

I really must get a good bookmark manager going again.

thiht 4y ago
Or an adblocker.

antihero 4y ago

I’m just amazed Cory Doctorow of all people doesn’t use uBlock and got duped by this. I’ve always seen Google Ads as about as reliable as the fake download buttons on crappy file websites. You tune them out or block them.

izacus 4y ago
I'm sure he personally does use it, but that doesn't stop him from highlighting these issues and talking about it. That's what he's been all about for years now.
- mooncakes_ooohh 4y ago
  Also it could have been a friend or family member finding it first. I use browser based adblockers on all my devices. My partner doesn't always. Luckily I have Pi-hole setup to at least block these links on my home network.
- dxuh 4y ago
  The thread states that he ordered there by accident. I don't think you do that to highlight something.
_nalply 4y ago
We shouldn't need to use uBlock. It is easy to assign blame to victims. This has happened to bycicle owners. If you don't lock your bike it's your fault your bike gets stolen. But theft is illegal. Theft is if someone wants to take something that doesn't belong to him and then executes the taking. Locks don't change this fact. It just makes the execution of the crime more difficult. I have a vision of an utopia where people can leave all things unlocked. If they get stolen, the thief gets identified immediately and he has to give the things back. No punishment at all or only a token punishment. This should work because sanctions are not neccessary if no harm was done. Today we punish caught thieves somewhat harshly because we need to deter people from becoming thieves. If we can stop thefts just after the fact, token punishment will suffice. If someone repeatedly tries to steal things in that utopia we could offer therapy or try to find out the underlying cause of the attempted thefts. That's utopia: everything works out perfectly for everybody (shrugs). Today we lock our browsing experience using uBlock just because we have to. We also have to lock our bikes, because we have to. Sorry for the tangent.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

maCDzP 4y ago

I like this guy. I chuckled when he wrote “guaran-fucking-tee”.

sokoloff 4y ago

The billing descriptor issue doesn’t seem like a KYC violation or Amex failure to me. Instead of using a static descriptor “Parasitic Middleman, LLC”, they send a dynamic descriptor for each transaction to tell the user “KIINTHAILA: OK, that was my Thai order; yeah, that was me”. It’s no different than when you see an order number on your statement or other dynamic text. I don’t approve of the business practice (and take care to avoid it with my local takeout places), but I don’t think it’s an Amex failure here.

ezekiel68 4y ago

> just following in the shoes of DoorDash and Uber Eats Typical error of his, going "A Bridge Too Far". He points out something interesting and important to lure you in and then hand-gestures grandly toward an industry/practice that he feels we should all question. Because, you know, brilliant genius Cory Doctorow.

lazyasciiart 4y ago
Uber and DoorDash did exactly the same thing as what you somehow find “interesting and important” when done by someone else, but you don’t care. Because, you know, brilliant disruption tech? Or what? https://support.google.com/business/thread/5820393/doordash-has-hijacked-my-google-business-page-and-i-can-t-edit-or-delete-the-order-link-away?hl=en https://support.google.com/business/thread/5820393/doordash-...
OwlsParlay 4y ago
This is something some delivery apps have been accused of doing though. https://www.eater.com/2020/1/29/21113416/grubhub-seamless-kin-khao-online-delivery-mistake-doordash https://www.eater.com/2020/1/29/21113416/grubhub-seamless-ki...
nehal3m 4y ago
I find it absolutely hilarious that you're doing the exact thing you're railing against in two sentences flat. Also, I'll give you that he does hand-gesture grandly in this Twitter thread, but he co-wrote a whole book about it called Chokepoint Capitalism. There's a lot more detail about it there, and the logic there applies here.
rpgbr 4y ago
Except it’s an industry/practice of the big ones: * https://www.eater.com/2020/1/29/21113416/grubhub-seamless-kin-khao-online-delivery-mistake-doordash https://www.eater.com/2020/1/29/21113416/grubhub-seamless-ki... * https://www.eater.com/2015/11/11/9714840/in-n-out-doordash-delivery-lawsuit https://www.eater.com/2015/11/11/9714840/in-n-out-doordash-d...

planede 4y ago

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but Google has a trademark complaint form specifically for this kind of situation: https://services.google.com/inquiry/aw_tmcomplaint https://services.google.com/inquiry/aw_tmcomplaint

actionfromafar 4y ago
Hilarious! Google opens the floodgates to the spam-dam, but here's a bucket and a ladder you can use in case you want to put some of the water back.

perihelions 4y ago

Simple legislative fix: entitle the victim (small business) to quickly and easily claim a trademark infringement on an ad, and claw back 100% of Google's revenue on that ad. And let Google be civilly liable, if they choose to contest such a trademark claim and they're in the wrong. Inspired by YouTube's DMCA claim system (or my superficial understanding of it). If there's a "bug bounty" on fraud, there will be an enthusiastic market for identifying it. If ad fraud doesn't reliably pay, the fraud market will be disincentivized. Finally, Google itself will have incentives less mis-aligned with its users'; its current incentive system being "the fraudsters pay us more; therefore we love fraud!"

specialist 4y ago
Any chance you have model legislation (for me to use)? Two years ago, I got fluffed up about scammers claiming unclaimed businesses. Like the food delivery startups (like Doctorow mentions). I started talking to my reps (city council, state) but haven't gotten any further. And I don't know where to start drafting the legislation. With some sort of resolution or model legislation, I can shop it around, get the ball rolling. Like chamber of commerce, some scammed businesses, my representatives. Thanks.
psychlops 4y ago
> If there's a "bug bounty" on fraud, there will be an enthusiastic market for identifying it. Not to mention a cottage industry of creating then "solving" the ad fraud. I imagine Google's solution for this would be 100% Yelp.
dsr_ 4y ago
The FTC has jurisdiction here. No new law is required. Complaints need to be made.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hunter2_ 4y ago
  I think the "fix" proposed here is that it be as frictionless as sending a DMCA notice. Is what you're talking about that easy? Sounds like we need scammy middleware between regular people and the complaint system to keep complaints flowing, monetize later!

srmarm 4y ago

The answer from Google's point of view is for the Thai restaurant to pay more for the advert so they are at the top of the rankings. When Google stopped putting a meaningful distinction between paid results and organic results that was a line for me. It's fine to have an adverts - you have to pay the bills but when the adverts become the results it's just pay to play rentseeking by Google and the product is now untrustworthy and on a downward spiral as a result. Amazon search results have taken a similar route, you can search for something specific and get something totally unsuitable as top result now.

Tozen 4y ago
Exactly. Google results can't be trusted, because it's clear they are very manipulated, based on their cut of profits and siphoned data that's used for user targeting. It has reached the point of being suspect, significantly detrimental, and increasingly criminal. And an argument can be made that they are actively suppressing competition, so that useful alternatives are not viable.

davidkuennen 4y ago

It has always boggled my mind that you're even allowed to publish ads targeting other companies brand names as keywords without being the verified owner of that company. But I understand Google here. It's probably their single biggest income stream. Our company is using a very big chunk of our ad words budget targeting our own brand name to make sure it's on top. More than for any other keyword by far. And I imagine many others do the same.

kennethh 4y ago
It was not allowed in the early days of google adsense, but guess it was to profitable to not allow it.
urbandw311er 4y ago
This is an underrated comment. Google are enabling fraud on a massive scale by permitting the hijacking of established names and brands. Often brands or names that some small family company has worked for years to build a reputation for. We do indeed live in a world where tech and capitalism have birthed some sort of horrific offspring that’s choking us all.
- fmajid 4y ago
  To be fair, in this case it's more racketeering.
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  But that's only part of it. Google will also happily serve up ads for fake bank websites that will steal your credentials. Google will happily serve up ads for a lot of malicious content on the Internet. Google are not only making it worse because of advertising, they're making it worse by facilitating scammers and fraudsters and various other criminals. All because their systems are so automated as to eschew any review that might actually make advertising on the Internet slightly less distasteful (and maybe the FBI wouldn't be recommending the choking off of Google's primary income stream)
  - 4y ago

bityard 4y ago

In Google maps, the top result for a locksmith in my city is a company that doesn't actually exist. The company has no website, just a toll-free number. The business name doesn't match anything in the state records. If you zoom in, the address given is literally in some kind of alley. The business has 4.5 stars and all of the reviews are in vague, broken English that never contain any details about the service or why they needed it. My guess is that when you call them, they take your info and then call a real locksmith in the area and pocket the difference.

acatton 4y ago
CBC's Marketplace did an investigation about this years ago. https://youtu.be/bvlzZnhZhrc?t=858 https://youtu.be/bvlzZnhZhrc?t=858 TL;DW: this is widespread in most cities in Canada. Scammers just setup fake businesses on google to have your nearest locksmith be some generic chain. I would expect this to be the same for the US.
Cenk 4y ago
The “Reply All” podcast had an episode about this: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2ho87 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2ho87
segmondy 4y ago
Almost all Google search for businesses are "scam". If you search for locksmith, plumber, heating and cooling, lawn, mechanic. It's all fronts often in eastern europe masking like local business and taking a hefty cut.

mellosouls 4y ago

Reminds me of the guy who made his shed the top rated restaurant on Trip Advisor https://www.vice.com/en/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor https://www.vice.com/en/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-to... https://wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich https://wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich

CaptainZapp 4y ago
That was incredibly funny. I can even agree with Trip Advisors' reasoning that their main concern are not fake restaurants, but dodgy reviews. Nevertheless, this never should have been allowed to slip through the cracks. It wasn't just a make pretend great London eatery on Trip Advisors. It was fucking number 1 in a city with literally 10s of thousands rated restaurants.
- xhkkffbf 4y ago
  Think about it. Pushing a fake restaurant to number 1 is not that hard. No real people eat at it and so no real person writes a less-than-five-star review. Real restaurants have off nights. Or maybe they have a snooty patron that is overly picky. Real restaurants-- even the best of them-- get a few one star reviews. So if you're looking at averages, there's no way that real can compete with fake.
  - saulpw 4y ago
    Maybe "average rating" shouldn't be a more-heavily-weighted metric than "confirmed existence of dining establishment".

gmerc 4y ago

You won’t believe what the top 5 results for chatgpt are

Loughla 4y ago
I just did that search. Ublock origin in firefox returned, in order. 1. openai.com, 2. openai.com blogpost, 3. ChatGPT Wikipedia, 4. ChatGPT story on digitaltrends.com, 5. ChatGPT article on ZDNet.com. Clean firefox with no ublock, in order. 1. openai.com, 2. ChatGPT Wikipedia, 3. ChatGPT story on digitaltrends.com, 4. ChatGPT article on ZDNet.com, 5. ChatGPT article on businessinsider.com. What am I missing?

vintermann 4y ago

The scammer has to receive money, and they have to spend money to buy ads. This is usually not something you can do anonymously. I'm wondering why it isn't shut down already, and I wonder how much of Google's ad revenue comes from this sort of thing.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

caseyf 4y ago

Wow, this happened with me with my local dumpling place a few days ago. I noticed the website was weird and I found my way to the correct one.

urbandw311er 4y ago

This is even worse in developing countries. I tried booking a hotel in the Albanian Riviera the other day. Good luck finding any of the hotels’ actual websites, the moneymiddlemen have got their first…

jeffbee 4y ago

I’d like to know what the author or any of these commenters think the process would look like that would have actually stopped this advertiser. Some guy wants to advertise their Thai restaurant. They’ve got the domain name, the site is up, it works. What else is the ad marketplace supposed to check? It’s not like you can’t have the same name as another Thai restaurant. After all, the domain registrar gave them that name. So what would it look like?

mcculley 4y ago
If my paid ad for my restaurant is right above the organic search result, how is Google adding any value?
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Hypothetically? You just recently moved your site to a new domain name (your reasons are your own) and you want to advertise the new one even though the old one is “organically” first. You want to control the snippet in a way that’s impossible with organic search. Among other hypothetical situations.
  - mcculley 4y ago
    Google could notice the paid link goes to the same page as the organic link and choose not to charge the advertiser as they are obviously not adding or creating value. Instead, because Google chooses to charge for that first link, it creates a situation where the business owner knows they have to outbid the competition to get the link above their own. This is great for Google’s shareholders, bad for the restaurant.
BLKNSLVR 4y ago
It would look a little bit like a company that's got a fuckton of relatively well curated data about the world and maybe combining that data with some kind of "artificial intelligence" to maybe produce something useful to society like a reduction in the number of scams it gives advertising space to. But maybe that's just me being shortsighted and valuing benevolence over revenue.

gorbachev 4y ago

How many impressions or clicks without a sale would it take to make the scammer's Google ads non profitable?

chrisbolt 4y ago
Are you suggesting fighting fraud with fraud?

reportgunner 4y ago

All ads are scam.

giarc 4y ago

The problem is real but this guys response is a bit over the top. In one tweet [1] he claims Google should know which one is the real restaurant. Does he think there is a person at Google reviewing all search results? Does he not understand that it's possible for two restaurants to exist with the same name? Does he not get that there are billions of searches with billions of search permutations done every minute. 1 - And why the actual FUCK is @GoogleAds accepting these scam artists' ads for a business that they already have a knowledge box for?! Google KNOWS what the real KIIN restaurant is, and yet they are accepting payment to put a fake KIIN listing two slots ABOVE the real one.

jeffbee 4y ago
That's not a knowledge box. It's a local search result. Also, there are about fifty billion Thai restaurants in America called "Kiin". Finally, the verified owner of the Burbank restaurant posts messages on Google Maps advertising order online via a third-party site. I truly do not understand how people think Google can figure out that this third party is allowed to advertise take out for this restaurant but that site can't.
cldellow 4y ago
I get that it's a hard problem. I don't think this is about "reviewing all search results". This is about reviewing the people who are paying you money to run ads. In this case, there were likely plenty of signals of fraud. This advertiser was advertising to multiple domains, and each domain was relatively young. Those domains would likely also have had low organic traffic. Here are some candidate solutions. I haven't thought these through deeply. This is spur-of-the-moment thinking. A multibillion dollar company could hopefully do better than me. 1 - Google could review new paid domains. In this case, the fraudulent site posted contact information, including the phone number for the real business! Phoning that number would have revealed the fraud immediately. 2 - Google could generally validate the identity of its advertisers. Advertising for a business? Cool, let's see some incorporation or tax paperwork. 3 - Google could impose a cost for being fraudulent. Want to run ads? Cool, we'll take a $1,000 retainer for each top-level domain you want to advertise. When you close your account, you can have it back after a 90-day waiting period. If we bounce you for fraud, we'll keep it. I used to work in ad tech. We reviewed the people we entered into financial relationships with, because we knew their bad behaviour could affect us. Google could do similarly.

aembleton 4y ago

Google have accepted these ads for ages, probably to try and get the actual business to pony up money for ads that are ranked higher. This happened to my partner after she wanted to book a Ryanair flight. Typed Ryanair into Chrome on her phone, clicked the first link that looked very much like Ryanair and paid for tickets. I hope Google get enough money from these sites to make it worth it.

oftenwrong 4y ago

I've noticed that Slice ( https://slicelife.com/ https://slicelife.com/ ) hijacks Google Maps listings like this. They setup a fraudulent website for a local pizzeria, then suggests their website to Google Maps. Google Maps will, at least in some cases, accept that fraudulent suggestion. As a result, Slice becomes a leeching middleman in the pizza order. I wrote a comment about it before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347930 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347930

mrbombastic 4y ago

Google search is getting worse and worse for this. I was in Argentina over the last month, I am not sure it is the norm but every time I performed a search instead of the usual 1 or 2 sponsored links there were 7 or 8, effectively pushing the real search results below the fold. The best was if I searched for google docs the top sponsored links were scam sites pretending to be google docs. The advertising business doesn’t even seem to care about protecting the rest of google, a small restaurant doesn’t stand a chance.

tankerkiller125 4y ago
I'm in the USA, the first 6 listings are all ads, and it's been like that for at least 4 months. It's so bad I legit switched to Bing.

dvngnt_ 4y ago

Same thing for many crypto services. Never use google search without adblock. The FBI was right

VLM 4y ago

The problem with trademarks and marketing slogans is "kiin thai" more or less translates to "come here to eat thai" more or less. I think the problem with most of the discussion about this "event" is most of the people with strong opinions seem to think "Kiin" is some dude's last name or a dish or a city name or something. It would be like trying to trademark and lawyer up the phrase "Food Store" or the word "Burger" in the USA.

mattigames 4y ago
Not really, by being a word used on a different country where they don't speak the language there is no space for confusion, it would be like trademarking "yonggan" in USA and saying that it is invalid because it means "bravery" in Chinese.

thiht 4y ago

Don't people use adblockers anymore? I swear there was a time where EVERYONE used one, what happened? And why are there now people that seem to actively avoid adblockers? This is one of the reasons why I don't want to see ANY ads. I don't care if an ad doesn't track me, I don't want to see it because it can still be harmful.

NikolaNovak 4y ago
I think "Everyone used one" is particular to a nerdy / technically-very-literate section of population. It may seem that 15-20 years ago it was different, but it is likely because 15-20 years ago, nerdy / technically-very-literate were simply a higher proportion of people who were on the internet. If I look at my non nerdy friends over last 20 years: 1. None of them are even aware of ad blockers 2. They'll claim "ads don't bother them" / they don't need one 3. They predominantly use phones and it can be tricky to install a working ad blocker () and 4. Yes they'll fall victims to ad scams - I didn't say they weren't internally contradictory people :P (): Yes it IS tricky to install ad blocker to a non-nerdy person. They need to learn what is it, why do you use one, how do you install one that's not a scam in itself!, how do you manage one, what are the limitations, how do I update it, which browser should I use, why doesn't my favourite porn-gambling-bingo-site work anymore, etc etc. I myself have ad blockers on my computer but have constantly failed to integrate a reliable ad blocker into my phone use cases.
DanAtC 4y ago
No plugins allowed on the default Android browser Chrome.

matbilodeau 4y ago

Problem with Google ads ? use an ad blocker, even the FBI recommends it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34916239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34916239 Need more convincing ? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34650366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34650366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34641328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34641328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34557354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34557354

shas3 4y ago

In India, Google search for a pretty specific string, "<nearest hospital's name> ambulance phone number," showed up a bunch of scammy ads. In our distraught state (an elderly relative had just had a fall), we accidentally called the top ad which turned out to be a scam ambulance service. A beat up van showed up, without any EMT, a sketchy stretcher without straps, and no tracks or fasteners to hold it down inside the van. We were outraged and asked them to leave immediately. They demanded money to leave, and left only when we threatened to call the police on them. We realized our mistake and scrolled down to the actual results and called the reputed local hospital which sent a properly equipped legit ambulance. Thankfully it was a simple fracture and the lost time did not lead to dangerous complications. But this could have been fatal if the emergency was more serious. When I returned to the US, I tried searching for ambulances, and Google conspicuously avoids showing ads and suggests calling 9-1-1.

tankerkiller125 4y ago
Sounds like India needs a single number for all emergency services instead of the fractured system they have now.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  It also sounds like Google knows to do the right thing when the country government they operate in force them to.
  - rhino369 4y ago
    Maybe. But it's easier to say "dial 911" when a country has 911. If India doesn't have something like 911, what is google supposed to recommend? Call 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3!
    - kevviiinn 4y ago
      I don't know, google maps seems to find the phone numbers for places pretty easily. Why is search any different?

shadowgovt 4y ago

> And why the actual FUCK is @GoogleAds accepting these scam artists' ads for a business that they already have a knowledge box for?! Google KNOWS what the real KIIN restaurant is, and yet they are accepting payment to put a fake KIIN listing two slots ABOVE the real one. For the same reason a Yelp result shows up as the second item on the page: Google's never (to my knowledge) had a policy against advertising on keywords associated with another firm. It is, in fact, a common way to get out in front of a company that is riding on brand-name recognition; advertising 101. ... but Google is having a recurring problem that users can't tell ads apart from organic results anymore, and if they don't do something they're at serious risk of losing reputation on search (which is in a precarious place right now). My recommendation would be to go back to yellow-boxing ads. (ETA: If Mr. Doctorow is meaning the emphasis to be placed on "scam artists", as in "Why can't Google tell these are scammers"... I guarantee when Google goes to that page they don't see a scam site. Masking is an old tactic. It used to be the case that Google had good countermeasures against masking, but as of late it seems like something has gone amiss with their ability to detect scams reliably, or volume has saturated their capacity, or it was always this bad and we're just in a media cycle right now... Insufficient infromation for me to be able to tell).

kritiko 4y ago
> Google's never (to my knowledge) had a policy against advertising on keywords associated with another firm. I think cloning a website would probably fall under their misrepresentation policy. “We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses.”
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  It definitely does and that's a scam. What I mean is that there's no policy stopping KIIN from advertising on "PF Changs" as a keyword because they want people to know there are alternatives to the national chain option.

georgeburdell 4y ago

There are way more egregious ones. I searched “fedex tracking” and the top link was a .in URL. I’m American

31337Logic 4y ago

Oh, it's for a thing called "money".

TheReveller 4y ago

Scammers also do this for searches like 'aircanada' (no spaces), including sometimes impersonating the official website while telling you to call a support number as the website is down.

PudgyWudge200 4y ago

Malvertising certainly appears to be the flavour of the month for threat actors. Must've seen a half dozen articles on fake ad sites for cloud vendors and various services in the last couple of weeks alone.

a4isms 4y ago

Doug @Rushkoff says that the ethic of today's "entrepreneur" is to #GoMeta - don't provide a product or a service, simply find a way to be a predatory squatter on a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who use those things. —https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948931710451712 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948931710451712 ---------- Alice: “Is Cory talking about these predatory fake restaurants? Or Google itself?” Beth: “Yes?”

jareklupinski 4y ago
yup that was my kneejerk too, literally the definition of 'middleman' the only counter-point I have is when I used to sell demonstration boards: they cost me almost nothing to produce and I designed them in minutes, but people who bought them said I saved them R&D time in the long run (open source)