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The providers of the world are much better situated to handle fraud, but there is a cost to handling such. Google's suggestion of out-bidding the rank, while so

The providers of the world are much better situated to handle fraud, but there is a cost to handling such. Google's suggestion of out-bidding the rank, while sort of unpleasant, is an effective method. Consider a situation where they "handle" the fraud in other automated means. The fraud detection costs will be baked into the overall costs in other ways: maybe via increasing the baseline prices of the ad or other means. I just don't see the providers doing this at a meaningful, widely accepted scale.

PaulHoule 4y ago
There is a cost to providers to not handling it. There are a few reasons why I am backing away from AMZN. I was enthusiastic about AMZN at the beginning, I subscribed to Prime as soon as it became available, I was quick to adopt Amazon Web Services. A few years ago I noticed that AMZN was getting flooded by bogus product listings and when I filed a complaint they told me outright that they didn't want to hear about it unless I'd bought the item. I can say I don't want to spend my time filtering through endless bogus product listings and that also the presence of bogus product listings calls into question the validity of all the other product listings. AMZN has competitors. I can buy stuff from Target, Best Buy, Adorama, Newegg, Office Depot and many other vendors that don't have this problem. Even Ebay feels like a community, people selling on it understand that they need a healthy community in order to continue selling things. I sometimes think about ordering something ahead when I want food from a restaurant but I almost never do it because (i) I don't know about the legitimacy of the ordering site, and (ii) even if it was legit I'd be concerned that it has IT problems or doesn't mesh with the production process. If I know people are pissing in the pool I won't swim in it.
- brodouevencode 4y ago
  Good point. How would you attribute the differences here? With Google, and as you say Amazon, they seem to be more prone to it. But with the other vendors there must be something separating the two. What exactly would you say allows the companies to be more reputable (at least perception-wise)?
nickphx 4y ago
Seems like a lazy excuse to me when you consider google currently sends a physical letter with a 'security code' to a business's address to verify ownership when you attempt to claim it on Google Maps..
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  That didn't stop me from claiming ownership of the central bank of an African country a few years back (I only got the idea because they asked me if I owned the business) and putting up a picture of Will Smith as the director. Then there was the guy who changed the hours for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository to claim it was open for an hour every Saturday. Maybe they accept household nuclear waste like old smoke detectors, Uranium glass, etc.
- brodouevencode 4y ago
  That's not necessarily a "web scale" problem like automated fraud detection would have to be.

PaulHoule 4y ago

There is a cost to providers to not handling it. There are a few reasons why I am backing away from AMZN. I was enthusiastic about AMZN at the beginning, I subscribed to Prime as soon as it became available, I was quick to adopt Amazon Web Services. A few years ago I noticed that AMZN was getting flooded by bogus product listings and when I filed a complaint they told me outright that they didn't want to hear about it unless I'd bought the item. I can say I don't want to spend my time filtering through endless bogus product listings and that also the presence of bogus product listings calls into question the validity of all the other product listings. AMZN has competitors. I can buy stuff from Target, Best Buy, Adorama, Newegg, Office Depot and many other vendors that don't have this problem. Even Ebay feels like a community, people selling on it understand that they need a healthy community in order to continue selling things. I sometimes think about ordering something ahead when I want food from a restaurant but I almost never do it because (i) I don't know about the legitimacy of the ordering site, and (ii) even if it was legit I'd be concerned that it has IT problems or doesn't mesh with the production process. If I know people are pissing in the pool I won't swim in it.

brodouevencode 4y ago
Good point. How would you attribute the differences here? With Google, and as you say Amazon, they seem to be more prone to it. But with the other vendors there must be something separating the two. What exactly would you say allows the companies to be more reputable (at least perception-wise)?

nickphx 4y ago

Seems like a lazy excuse to me when you consider google currently sends a physical letter with a 'security code' to a business's address to verify ownership when you attempt to claim it on Google Maps..

PaulHoule 4y ago
That didn't stop me from claiming ownership of the central bank of an African country a few years back (I only got the idea because they asked me if I owned the business) and putting up a picture of Will Smith as the director. Then there was the guy who changed the hours for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository to claim it was open for an hour every Saturday. Maybe they accept household nuclear waste like old smoke detectors, Uranium glass, etc.
brodouevencode 4y ago
That's not necessarily a "web scale" problem like automated fraud detection would have to be.