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Internal slides on the work of the Google "Ads Quality" team
- throwaway29303 3y agohttps://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-10/417378.pdf https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-10/417378.pdf
- rwmj 3y agohttps://nitter.net/jason_kint/status/1718830641016414657 https://nitter.net/jason_kint/status/1718830641016414657
- _8j50 3y agoThanks, I can't read the thread on OP's link. Wish people stop using 'x'.
- dsab 3y agoIts ridiculous we use this character length limited tool for posting long articles
- te_chris 3y agoAnd now non-public. Cutting threads for non-authd users is such a hostile act.
- PaulHoule 3y agoEven if you were logged in the threads would be FUBAR. "Twitter Threads" are mostly for the gratification of people who post them, not the ones that read them. The one intervention I'd like to see in HN is for the links to X to go away. It's not like you're allowed to link from Twitter to the outside world anymore without being punished, the rest of the world should do the obvious thing.
- nubinetwork 3y agoThere is no ad quality, they'll hock everything and anything, even obvious scams.
- nathancahill 3y ago*Hawk
- wccrawford 3y agoI didn't expect to find hock vs hawk that interesting. I wasn't sure which was correct, so I looked, and... Hawk is a verb: to sell on the street. Ex: He hawks goods on the corner. Hock is a noun: debt or pawn. Ex: He got his watch out of hock. Thanks nathancahill and Merriam-Webster!
- mpclark 3y agoIt hinges on different definitions of quality, I think...
- kyrra 3y agoThey publish a list of Inappropriate content. Implementing it is obviously hard when bad actors have an incentive to try to get around it. https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6015406?hl=en https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6015406?hl=en
- jfim 3y agoInterestingly enough, that list doesn't include misleading ads. That probably explains some of the ads that are designed to prey on less computer savvy users like "download PDF" button ads that are served by Google's display network.
- supriyo-biswas 3y agoCould someone let me know how I could see all the exhibits released in relation to US v. Google? I am aware of Courtlistener[1], but the actual documents are nowhere to be found. Though redacted, having a list of all exhibits may make for some good reading. [1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18552824/united-states-of-america-v-google-llc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18552824/united-states-...
- EMIRELADERO 3y agohttps://www.justice.gov/atr/us-and-plaintiff-states-v-google-llc-2020-trial-exhibits https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-and-plaintiff-states-v-google...
- CodesInChaos 3y agoInteresting admission: > Chrome exists to serve Google search, and if it cannot do that because it is regulated to be set by the user, the value of users using Chrome goes to almost zero (for me).
- mojo74 3y agoI wouldn't be surprised that Chrome's hook in future iterations will be that it serves like a loyalty card e.g. use Chrome and make extra savings clicking on their ads. Just don't call it a web browser.
- kibwen 3y agoDelete this before you give them any fresh new ideas for how to be as evil as possible.
- cpeterso 3y agoLike Microsoft’s Rewards points and discounts program: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/rewards/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/rewards/
- mojo74 3y ago'Earn points for each search you make through Bing' I did not know this existed. There's something a bit sad about it.
- infecto 3y agoNot surprising at all to me. One of my issues with Google in the past couple years is their super aggressive push for me to be part of the system, I am usually unconcerned with sharing my data but their tactic has gone from gentle nudges to bothersome. 1) Using a non-chrome browser to access gmail? At least once a week get a popup telling me the experience is better in Chrome and I should switch. 2) Not logged into google in safari on my phone. During a routine google search, telling me with a modal to login to improve the search experience. Its exhausting and I started backing away from google because of it. Ok, tell me once or maybe tell me every few months thats fine...but every week the same darn message. Too much.
- Mandatum 3y agoWow. The default search function is about to get royally fucked by the EU because of that last slide. If only Google had set file retention for slides to 24 hours like they do chat.
- ben_w 3y ago> If only Google had set file retention for slides to 24 hours like they do chat. That sounds like it should be illegal. Would it be illegal? (I'm not a lawyer).
- rmbyrro 3y agoNot a lawyer, but I'd expect it to be illegal if it happens while they're under investigation or trial. Could be tempering with evidence? But in "normal" days, it would be strange to be illegal to delete anything.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- compiler-guy 3y agoDocument retention policies are complicated in how they deal with legal issues, but ignoring about a million subtleties and complications, you can delete whatever you want if there is no reason to believe it is associated with a crime, and are not doing it to possibly hide evidence. In the days when everything was on paper, keeping everything around was expensive. Do you really need that memo from 10 years ago? How would you even archive and store it? Deleting it makes sense, but you need to be sure you aren't hiding criminal activity. Or at least don't have the intent to hide criminal activity. So companies have rules like "delete everything after a year"--there is no intent to cover up a crime. But as soon as you become involved in legal proceeding, you have to start saving stuff. It gets complicated fast, but that is the basic rule.
- JustARandomGuy 3y agoA pretty insightful look at how Google thinks about its ads - I was surprised by the System Challenges slide - it looks as if they’re having hardware concerns about the Ads fleet? I wonder if the Ads software inflicts more “stress” on its machines than a regular workload such as gmail, search, etc.
- ralusek 3y agoMy understanding is that everything ads related has a completely different standard for performance because so much of it happens with real time bidding for ad space in the same window of time that a user is being served a (likely cached) webpage.
- DelightOne 3y agoCaching and bidding might be why Google tries to correct users’ searches.
- alright2565 3y agoThis is also a 2008 document, at a much younger Google.
- infecto 3y agoPretty fun to finally see direct evidence and testimony that all decisions are related around search ads revenue. While I have no concern about my data being used for ads, I do think Google has started crossing the boundaries where their practices have become more hostile for the user for the pure goal of increasing search revenue.
- nusl 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kyrra 3y agoGoogler, opinions are my own. One thing of note is that these slides looked old (dated). The "Google" logo on the slides is pre Sept 2015 (https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/1/9239769/new-google-logo-announced https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/1/9239769/new-google-logo-an...), when they moved to the new typeface. Internal marketing moved pretty quickly to update all slide templates to use the new logo, so that tells me this slide deck is likely at least 8 years old. Meaning, the information on these slides may not apply anymore. The value-proposition for Chrome may have changed since then, especially with Chromebooks being in the mix.
- koolba 3y ago> Meaning, the information on these slides may not apply anymore. The value-proposition for Chrome may have changed since then, especially with Chromebooks being in the mix. The prevalence of ad blocking has grown significantly since 2015. If anything, these slides apply even more than they did when first created. The specifics might have changed but the situations they’re trying to address to preserve and maximize the revenue model for search have only expanded.
- esprehn 3y agoThe first slide says January 2008: https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-10/417378.pdf https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-10/417378.pdf
- jacquesm 3y agoYes, true it probably got a lot worse since than, thanks for pointing that out.
- choppaface 3y ago> the information on these slides may not apply anymore. The slides provide evidence for places auction rigging can happen, and that’s exactly what Google did recently with Jedi Blue https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue > The value-proposition for Chrome may have changed since then, especially with Chromebooks being in the mix. Pretty sure that argument is irrelevant given that Google pays over $25B per year to be the search default https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934961/google-antitrust-trial-defaults-search-deal-26-3-billion https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934961/google-antitrus...
- unraveller 3y ago>"This shift opens up an ____ opportunity to go after FaceBook." easy or evil perhaps?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- PaulHoule 3y agoFor the record: this is a classic example of why links to X suck. If you go to the actual PDF (https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-10/417378.pdf https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-10/417378.pdf) you find it tells a story which is vastly more coherent... The author of that thread skips a lot of slides which explain what is going on. It's a neglected story that "Ad Quality" is an important issue in other markets, particularly, Television. Apologists for the ad industry repeat, without a pause, that advertisers crave a young audience, but look at the ads on TV since 2000 and you'd think "I want to die before I get old" and it comes from the American condition of election campaigns, prescription drugs, lawsuits and financial services for a few whales being on a different planet than anything else in terms of dollars at stake. From time to time they have woken up, realized it drives away viewers, and put a little effort into "Ad Quality" but it has been too little too late.
- whateveracct 3y agoFun fact: If you aren't logged in, you can't even see the twitter thread. If the author didn't add /1, I wouldn't even know there was more. so twitter threads are login-walled :/
- astrodust 3y agoX is what happens when you take the user out of UX.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoX is what happens after add S(hit) to UX.
- PaulHoule 3y agoDid you know? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poop_emoji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poop_emoji Was introduced to be use in the "download our mobile app for a 'better' experience" popovers on sites like Reddit and Twitter. Did you know? "App" is a contraction of ...
- esprehn 3y agoThe very first slide says "Last Revision Date: January 2008" so this deck looks to be almost 16 years old. https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-10/417378.pdf https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-10/417378.pdf Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not on ads and have no insights into the deck.
- esafak 3y agoI've worked on ads quality and I see nothing revelatory here. It's all outdated anyway.
- dncornholio 3y agoLove how this guy just makes stuff up. Claiming there's knobs and levers while the slides show it's all automated. Anyway...
- hamuraijack 3y agoI don't know about anyone else, but ads on google don't even concern me as a consumer anymore since search results have more or less become useless click-farms. I use google almost exclusively to search either reddit or stack overflow, and even the results don't seem to hit the way they used to.
- kakwa_ 3y agoThese 2008 slides talking about "Ads Quality" really sound weird compared to today. The screenshots, with the ads being clearly visible, surrounded by yellow boxes, and not taking too much screen real estate, are quite striking compared to the Search Result page now days (which feels a lot more blurry and sneaky). At the same time, we now get mandatory ads on Youtube, and personally, I was quite chocked by how low quality these can be. Best case, it's your traditional sugary food ads, worst case, it's propaganda or border line scam promo. Maybe Youtube always was that bad for the ~2/3 of people not using ad-blockers and I was blind to it. However, with the recent layoffs, the end of free money, the slow death of Twitter/X and the push for more monetization (ads on Youtube, API monetization on Reddit, etc), it feels we are reaching the end of an era.