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YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads

• boeingUH60 3y ago
  It's unfortunate but I think the solution is to just pay for YouTube Premium. Since I did that, I'm happy not to get dumb ads.
• kevwil 3y ago
  And they're shocked that people want to run ad blockers? LOL
• marbu 3y ago
  I reported about 5 such ads just this moth, all clear financial scams impersonating well known people and companies in Czech republic (where I live), only to be told that youtube checked my claim and that the add in question doesn't break any youtube policy. Obviously nothing is forcing Google to deal with this in any way. But I wonder how could that work out for Google in the long run.
  • omega1 3y ago
    The same thing happened to me. Ads from Kazakhstan impersonating a Czech state-owned energy company etc. And almost every day there is an article in the news about how older people have been caught and lost their savings.
    • marbu 3y ago
      In my case, it was either from Kazakhstan or the US.
  • zigzag312 3y ago
    So Google is then knowingly participating in financial scams? Looks like grounds for a lawsuit.
    • Nextgrid 3y ago
      Google is not alone in promoting such scams and being complicit of crime. The law doesn't apply to big companies though, so they can keep doing so and profiting off it.
      • zigzag312 3y ago
        DMCA takedowns are proof that law applies to big companies too. Unfortunately, they only respond to lawsuits it seems. Victims of these scams should sue Google, Meta and any other big company knowingly participating in these kind of scams.
  • YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
    The more legitimate reasons for adblockers (such as "I don't want to risk falling for scams."), the worse their anti-adblocker efforts look.
  • bitcharmer 3y ago
    Seems like the only policy is that it makes money. If it does then everything's ok.
  • throw310822 3y ago
    > Obviously nothing is forcing Google to deal with this in any way Really? I mean, they're getting paid by a scammer who uses provably fake and deceptive content to prey on its victims; they have been alerted to the situation, they claim they reviewed it, and that they think it's fine. What could go wrong?
    • marbu 3y ago
      Yeah. This is why I doubt it's a good strategy for Google in the long term. Sooner or later, someone will be finally pissed off enough to go after this practice (either a government or another big US company). That said, there seems to be no legal way for a big Czech company to go neither against Google or the scammers, otherwise this would have been already resolved. CEZ (one of the companies being impersonated by the scammers here) made a press release about this almost 2 years ago (references are in Czech): https://www.cez.cz/cs/pro-media/tiskove-zpravy/klamave-reklamy-zneuzivajici-znacku-cez-se-opet-mnozi.-spolecnost-varuje-je-to-podvod-nenechte-se-nachytat-154310 https://www.cez.cz/cs/pro-media/tiskove-zpravy/klamave-rekla... https://www.cez.cz/cs/podvodna-reklama https://www.cez.cz/cs/podvodna-reklama
      • throw310822 3y ago
        Thanks. I still don't understand how is it possible that suing youtube doesn't work after having reported the ads and having been told that they're fine. You basically have a written statement from the company that incriminates them.
• epstein 3y ago
  google is from capitalist country, as long as they get money they just dont care
• sys_64738 3y ago
  When you are an ad company then why would you reject the source of revenue?
  • bArray 3y ago
    Because your mega advertisers (Coca Cola, Disney, et al) are being played next to scam ads. Also I think this should be a two way street. If content creators need to moderate their content lest they be slapped to death by Youtube to help the advertisers, advertisers also have a responsibility to ensure their advertisements do not cause issue for content creators and/or viewers. It's unclear who currently runs Youtube, but they have been making bad decision after bad decision. Youtube is now extremely hostile which goes against the values it once held when it first grew.
    • mc32 3y ago
      Yeah, I want to see them stop advertising on YouTube as a protest. I doubt it will happen. They only care about money and image, if image damages their money.
      • ipython 3y ago
        Perhaps then this is really Elon planting these ads after all, to bring advertisers back to Twitter. /s
    • Euphorbium 3y ago
      You have just a few big advertisers, but millons of scammers. Scammers can outspend big advertisers.
      • bratwurst3000 3y ago
        That’s a good question, does someone know what the percentage of big advertiser revenue to little advertiser revenue is with google services? Big advertiser beeing a top company like Coca Cola.
• passwordoops 3y ago
  They're all like that. A whole back I reported an obvious real estate scam using Wayne Gretzky and some Blue Jays player (I'm in Canada). The reply was it didn't break any policy. When ads are the primary source of revenue, there's zero incentive to police the platform
  • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    > (I'm in Canada) The reply was it didn't break any policy. When ads are the primary source of revenue, there's zero incentive to police the platform TL;DR: If you're a major on-line ad distributor like Google/Meta, and broadcast malicious ads to consumers, then you should be liable for them according to local laws just how TV and radio broadcasters are liable for the same thing. Long argument: Sure those ads don't break Youtube/Google's own internal policy (why would they, they're an ad company reporting to their shareholders), but what about breaking the nation's/Canada's policy on ads? I bet there might be some fines there to be handed out. Hear me out. If such scams aren't legally allowed on licensed national TV and radio channels or printed media, otherwise the broadcasters and publishers would face crippling fines, then why do we as government agencies allow Youtube to get away with broadcasting these scams to its viewers? Sure, Youtube is not a licensed TV broadcaster but maybe we should start regulating them partly as such, similarly how the EU's Digital Markets Act aims to fix current major digital gatekeepers and make them as compliant as physical markets. I mean, one of the main reasons big-tech has reaped such insane profits is that the same regulations that apply to traditional physical businesses like brick and mortar markets and media broadcasters, did not apply to them because they operated on the unregulated Wild West that was the internet, while also extracting all the global profits that come from operating on such a global scale except with none of the costs assigned to local legal regulatory compliance that operating physical business have. So now it's time to patch these digital loopholes and have big-tech operating in the ad space just as accountable as the rest of the businesses, considering their size, outreach and therefore influence on the gen-pop. Google's not a scrappy start-up anymore, they can definitely afford to police the ads they serve according to the local laws, considering their size, workforce, ML tech and profits. Same with Meta and their ad network.
    • 3y ago
• themaninthedark 3y ago
  I wonder about the legality of the ads that say to go to a website to sign up for government money.
  • PaulHoule 3y ago
    I remember seeing some ads that looked really scammy about getting free medical equipment from Medicare on OTA television for years. Years later, it turned out I was right. If you called those folks they'd patch you through to a dishonest doctor who would write you a prescription for something like a back brace, even if you didn't need it. If you did need some kind of medical equipment later you might find you couldn't get it paid for because you already got the benefit. I wonder if ubiquitous exposure to that kind of crap has political implications. That is, you see a scam on TV several times a day that is clearly a scam but the people who run the TV station don't see it is a scam, bureaucrats don't see it is a scam, politicians don't see a scam. Politicians seem out so out of it that they launch their campaign with something that sounds just like a spam phone call. OTA stations in most dayparts in Syracuse almost exclusively run ads for things you don't pay for with your own money: personal injury lawyers, prescription drugs, and things you can get with government benefits. You do see an ad for a car dealer from time to time because if nobody bought cars you couldn't get hit by a car to call William Matar. I wonder if watching that crap turns people into Republicans.
• DeathArrow 3y ago
  My ad blocker defends me from YouTube scams. :)
  • ebiester 3y ago
    This isn't about us. This is about the systemic problem and its relation to our industry.
• l33tman 3y ago
  Same experience for me, reported several clear scam ads and just get a reply from G that they don't violate any policies... :/
  • bluGill 3y ago
    Next step is your local attorney general. (or whatever the equivalent position is in your company). They should be able to find plenty of things that have long been illegal about promoting scams. Of course will they do their job?
    • rchaud 3y ago
      One man's "politician doing their job" is another man's "strangling innovation with bureaucratic red tape".
      • mandmandam 3y ago
        Fifty families' "politician doing their job" is one man's "strangling innovation with bureaucratic red tape", and even that one man knows he's full of shit. But when that one man represent a hundred-billion dollar company, attorneys general seem to get very confused as to where their loyalty lies. It's unfortunate for the fifty families (and quite lucrative for the AGs and GGLs).
• sonicanatidae 3y ago
  Wait...a Corporation, who's entire revenue stream is generated from ads, doesn't care who their ads harm, as long as they make money. Shocking.. truly shocking.
  • darkerside 3y ago
    You realize normalizing this with comments like that is what makes it not shocking? Self fulfilling prophecy
    • sonicanatidae 3y ago
      I wouldn't call sarcasm normalization of shitty practices, but ok.
      • Dylan16807 3y ago
        Sarcasm is just a way of phrasing things. Sarcastic comments can make almost all the same arguments that non-sarcastic comments can. If sarcasm makes fun of not expecting something, then it's normalizing that thing.
        • youcantcook 3y ago
          [dead]
    • bratwurst3000 3y ago
      Parent isnt normalizing it’s already the norm and politicians don’t rly care. That’s why we have to change normality ;)
  • epgui 3y ago
    Talk about a great example of David Hume’s “is-ought problem”.
    • sonicanatidae 3y ago
• realusername 3y ago
  That's the truth Google doesn't want you to say because it hurts their business, less than half of the ads I see on YouTube are legal. They know about this and just keep the money. And that's just the straight up illegal ones, if we also count the questionable ones, the share is higher.
• bschne 3y ago
  Ironically Twitter/X, for all its recent criticism, comes out ahead on this stuff: at least there they get community notes saying it’s a scam fairly quickly
  • albedoa 3y ago
    You cannot be serious. It is a daily meme that Twitter ads are all scams now because all of the legitimate advertisers are leaving. That's why it is an interesting, news-worthy event when a community note is attached to an ad.
    • bschne 3y ago
      I am serious! In an ideal world, Twitter/X would have more legitimate advertisers to keep the platform running, and also would have adequate content moderation that quickly got rid of the scams, through some combination of tech and human oversight. They are, and I am not debating that, doing pretty badly at that currently -- I get a few of the scam ads daily, ranging from misleading freemium games (sketchy) to sites faking local news publications and public figures to advertise financial scams (downright criminal fraud wherever you decide to draw that line). But, looked at separately, allowing users to put notes under paid-for (!) ads pointing out issues with them is pretty remarkable. Tech gets a lot of flak for bowing to advertisers in the name of $$$, but here it is the users who have some power to set misleading ads straight, with zero influence by the advertiser in question. That is laudable, even if in an ideal world this would be unnecessary, or at least less load-bearing in terms of preventing fraud!
      • albedoa 3y ago
        My guy, you are the mark.
• NietTim 3y ago
  Youtube just doesn't care. It took them over 3 months to take down ads that used video of forced confessions of Belarusian protestors. Money, money, money.
• Barrin92 3y ago
  There's not just the scam ads but also fake livestreams, sometimes on hijacked channels with large numbers of subscribers. Earlier this year there was a big wave of fake "Tesla" channels prompting people to scan a QR code that led them to some malware infested site trying to steal crypto from them. It went on for weeks. There needs to be accountability for platforms at some point. It's ludicrous that a company with the resources of Youtube can just ignore that much literal fraud.
• petee 3y ago
  Of the maybe 300 ads I've reported, I've only been confident that the one selling the real ghostgun was taken down, but the rest I usually see again in short order
• anilakar 3y ago
  ...nor scammy AI generated videos. This morning I came across a bit clickbaity and alarmist netsec video in my feed. Watched it for a minute before I started to wonder why the otherwise completely natural voice said "asterisk" between all sentences. Then I realized it was narrating a markdown bullet list.
  • neop1x 3y ago
    The amount of fake and useless generated videos exploded after Google removed dislike numbers.
• calmworm 3y ago
  This isn’t news… Facebook won’t remove any scam ad, post, or account either. They just don’t care.
  • supermatt 3y ago
    A while ago I reported a video of a cat being blended in a blender on Facebook. Apparently that didn't go against their policy either.
    • cultureswitch 3y ago
      Arguably that won't cause as much damage as scams. But holy bad taste
  • notahacker 3y ago
    IIRC the worst example of this was Facebook declining to remove a reported scam ad featuring Martin Lewis (a well-known consumer advice guru in the UK, and an honest one) who had already launched a lawsuit against them for permitting scam ads using his image and secured a settlement where Facebook donated £3m to charity and promised to do better. Which is probably a good example of Hanlon's law, because it's really in the interests of Facebook for their vetters dealing with reported ads to know who the guy that has the resources and inclination to sue them again when his likeness appears in ads on their platform, no matter how cynical their general policy on ad acceptance is.
• segphault 3y ago
  I routinely see ads for fake medical treatments that they refuse to take these down when I report them despite the fact that the ads obviously violate Google's policies. So many of the ads on YouTube are for things that are obviously sketchy that when I see a new product I'm not familiar with for the first time in YouTube ad I just assume it is a scam. It's crazy because YouTube has probably more information about the sort of products that I actually want to buy than probably any other company besides Shopify. About a quarter of what I watch are literally just product reviews. They have a ton of high-intent purchasing signal for reputable products, and instead they are showing me ads for trash. I know it doesn't have to be this way, because Instagram somehow manages to show me highly relevant ads for stuff that I've actually gone on to purchase after discovering there.
  • AlexandrB 3y ago
    > They have a ton of high-intent purchasing signal for reputable products, and instead they are showing me ads for trash. This shouldn't be surprising. Ad placement is based on who pays to be placed in front of certain audiences. It doesn't matter if you're really into hi-fi amplifiers if no hi-fi company placed ads for that audience segment or if the hi-fi companies were outspent by boner pill salesmen. Google is not optimizing for relevance but for revenue.
    • I_Am_Nous 3y ago
      All the more reason for me to block ads. If relevance were the optimizing metric, I might see ads for things I'm truly interested in, but if YouTube is only showing me the highest paying ads and it doesn't care how relevant those ads are to me, they are just noise I need to ignore or block. Especially when they are mostly scams and trash paying to be in front of my eyeballs. I have no desire or obligation to be propagandized, tricked, or misled by bad ads just so I can watch a video I actually am interested in.
  • delecti 3y ago
    > despite the fact that the ads obviously violate Google's policies There's no contradiction here. Google's policies exist primarily in service of keeping their platforms safe for advertisers. The ads aren't placed on other ads though, so there's no reason for them to stress much about maintaining the same quality in their ads as the content being monetized. As for targeting, they're just optimizing for CPM. If advertisers for scammy junk pay more than advertisers for things you might like to buy, then you get what you see now. There's always another mark for the scams.
• Sanzig 3y ago
  It may be extreme, but I think we need to pass legislation to make advertising networks civilly liable for fraud facilitated by their services. Google will change its tune quickly when it's their wallet on the line. As a bonus, this also provides a restitution path for victims (most of these frauds are run overseas, so the perpetrators are out of reach of the justice system).
  • graphe 3y ago
    AdBlock tried gently with "acceptable ads". https://getadblock.com/en/acceptable-ads-faq/ https://getadblock.com/en/acceptable-ads-faq/ I don't mind the antagonistic method today since I will NEVER accept the idea that an ad is acceptable. The law you propose would help weaken advertising and that would make me happy. Apple killing targeted ads also made it worst. Sports gambling also makes the environment worst.
    • fwn 3y ago
      For some reason, the acceptable ads program from eyeo led them to allow some of the worst, chumboxy paid content - as far as I remember. Coincidentally, the effort was paid for by the very same companies that ended up on the whitelist. From the outside, at least, this gave the impression that the whitelisting was simply paid for and covered up by a fig leaf process. I haven't checked in a while, but that program always struck me as deeply problematic. Today, that no longer matters, as ublock origin has emerged as a time-tested, no-compromise, user-choice content blocking solution.
    • calamari4065 3y ago
      And that's why most people switched to uBlock. The acceptable ads was a pay to win thing and very quickly devolved into exactly the kind of cesspool you'd expect
  • wredue 3y ago
    Google would respond by removing your country from using YouTube. Then it would be up to your country to call their bluff. Who know whether they would or not. Google held out for longer than I thought they would on the Canada link laws. Ultimately, Google would give in and reopen YouTube, but how long would it take and would people give up YouTube for several months while wait for governments to battle Google facilitating fraud?
• ak_111 3y ago
  I keep getting an ad which claims to be the "Tesla of heaters" it even shows the tesla logo when they say this. If anything I am surprised that Elon is not suing them (youtube) just for fun (given the problems he is having with ads). If anything it would be an easy way for him to publicly show that scammy ads are a global problem and not just an X issue. Although I think it can be solved in a nanosecond if there was enough will.
  • Arie 3y ago
    Got that one as well a bunch of time with 2 fake dutch inventors. Reported it, got denied because Youtube thinks it's fine to promote a scam like that.
    • tivert 3y ago
      Got a link to the ads?
      • raphman 3y ago
        Replied to you elsewhere but this might be a German version of the ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WorrpfjAYdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WorrpfjAYdc
        • Arie 3y ago
          That's the one
• dilawar 3y ago
  Many Google services in India openly promote/advertise astrologers and other related scams. This always leaves a bad taste in my mouth even if it legal.
• dissident_coder 3y ago
  Fake Elon Musk crypto/investment scams are like 60% of the ads I get, it's atrocious. I report every single one but it's tireing...and YouTube wants me to disable my adblocker? F*ck you! Or when the Israel/Hamas war broke out, the number of propaganda ads from Israel/the IDF was outright disturbing. Most of them spewing the nonsense of Israel being "the holy ones" and they are fighting the "evil animals". Just repugnant rhetoric.
• mensetmanusman 3y ago
  A relative who is old and less sharp than they used to be lost a few K off of these deepfake scam ads and crypto. These ads are a tax on the old and low IQ.
• JanneVee 3y ago
  As it turns out there is a whole category in YouTubes ad system for Get-Rich-Quick schemes, as detailed out in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkhGJUTW3ag&t=1031s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkhGJUTW3ag&t=1031s (timestamped at the relevant time). Just today I saw my elderly father click on a YouTube ad link for a crypto scam copying Swedish televisions web layout he was reading it and I saw it at the corner of my eye. He has adblock installed, he disabled it because of the terms of service popup by YouTube. What is he supposed to do, create a google account and get premium instead? How about having safe ads so he doesn't have to figure out YouTube premium?
  • zerr 3y ago
    Ad blocker can block that popup...
    • JanneVee 3y ago
      Yeah if it is updated chrome plugin which Google of course delayed update on.
    • alargemoose 3y ago
      Yes, but as of the last couple months. YouTube and ad blockers have been in a constant cat and mouse game where YouTube blocks users with an AD blocker from viewing content at all, until your ad blocker updates with new rules to circumvent that blocking. Trivial for you and I maybe, but less so for someone the GP described as “elderly”
    • Balgair 3y ago
      > He has adblock installed, he disabled it because of the terms of service popup by YouTube.
  • verdverm 3y ago
    > What is he supposed to do, create a google account and get premium instead? I just put my parents on my family plan, you should consider it, it's a very low price for the peace of mind, plus they love not having ads
• snowpid 3y ago
  looks like Youtube doesnt comply with some of its duties in the EU https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-services-act/europe-fit-digital-age-new-online-rules-platforms_en https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-...
• openthc 3y ago
  Really frustrating as folks can advertise that crap but, regulated cannabis is blocked. Heck, we can't even mention our product/protocols on these $BigCo sites or they'll kick us off forever! Trying to publish in the AppStore along side all that scam-ware -- nope, sorry can't have that deadly cannabis around here.
• cultureswitch 3y ago
  Every passing day I lean closer to the position that advertisement contracts should not be enforceable.
• bhandziuk 3y ago
  I am seeing this post minutes after feeling fed up with all the scam ads on YT and finally reporting a bunch of them. Reading all these comments makes me feel rather deflated. Like there is no hope.
• forshow 3y ago
  Allowing ads to be harmful bolsters the new protection racket. "It'd be a shame if your parents/grandparents got scammed.. Have you heard of YT Premium?"
  • wharvle 3y ago
    There’s precedent: they already run a protection racket on search. “Gee, it’d sure be a shame if your competitors showed up at the top of a search for your exact company or product. But if you pay us for ads on those keywords…”
• Ekaros 3y ago
  They don't even have technology or man power to ban exactly same discussion threads appearing on financial content. And by same I mean word to word... I know it is uphill battle, but how much work would it be to throw it at some moderator and have them blacklist it...
• GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
  Twitter actually has some of the best ad oversight, almost entirely by accident too. Community Notes (formerly Birdwatch) lets users flag tweets that are misleading. Since Ads on Twitter are just normal tweets, they can be fact checked. Twitter's average ad quality has plummeted recently, but most of the scam ads I see have a massive user-added disclaimer outlining how it's a scam. I wonder how this affects the click through rate for these ad placements?
  • IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
    I've been thinking about this for a while. I've seen many of these community notes - how exactly do these work ? Is a community note borne out of "most upvoted" replies to a particular tweet ? If so, how does it go from a simple upvoted reply, to a "community note" ?
    • voxic11 3y ago
      Basically if you are in good standing on the platform you can apply to be a contributor and if accepted you can submit and rate notes. The note which actually appears to everyone is selected out of the contributor submitted notes using some algorithm which is open source. > To find notes that are helpful to the broadest possible set of people, Community Notes takes into account not only how many contributors rated a note as helpful or unhelpful, but also whether people who rated it seem to come from different perspectives. https://communitynotes.twitter.com/guide/en/about/introduction https://communitynotes.twitter.com/guide/en/about/introducti...
    • iteratethis 3y ago
      You need to sign up to become a community notes contributor. Then you can add notes, and if enough people from a diverse set of other contributors find it helpful, the community note will publicly appear. It's one of few things at Twitter that work shockingly well and reliable. I've never seen an obvious partisan community note. Other networks should embrace this.
      • cactusplant7374 3y ago
• micromacrofoot 3y ago
  We need more regulations to weaken ads entirely. We've seen the free market of ads and it's total garbage.
• tiberius_p 3y ago
  This creates a legitimate reason to use an adblocker.
• scanr 3y ago
  I’m surprised there is no liability for facilitating scams / fraud on the ad networks given that they’re making money on it.
  • macinjosh 3y ago
    I don't see how it is not wire fraud. But in this country the FBI only goes after what is politically important.
  • Nextgrid 3y ago
    These platforms control too much of humanity’s social fabric for any politician to dare go against them in fears of being “cancelled” and effectively disappear (in favour of their rival). Same for privacy protections, nobody dares do anything about it.
• thelittleone 3y ago
  I've reported a bunch of scan Elon Musk crypto live streams and they've always responded quickly (within an hour) and shut them down. That's the only case I've reported.
• amne 3y ago
  I refuse to believe people think those are good deepfakes. The lipsync is so so so bad. So bad.
  • Jakob-G 3y ago
    I saw that Deep fake Elon ad on my phone and on a small screen i didn't notice the small mismatches. Especially in the first 20 seconds it is spot on. I mean i didn't fall for it either, but i totally see how other people could fall for these deep fakes. Obviously, they do, otherwise these scammers wouldn't have the money to run these ads.
• throw_m239339 3y ago
  During the PS5 reveal, Youtube was literally recommending multiple scam live feeds offering free PS5 or Bitcoin. Here is an example. https://decrypt.co/32102/scam-sony-playstation-5-reveal-event-video-steals-13000-in-bitcoin https://decrypt.co/32102/scam-sony-playstation-5-reveal-even... The problem isn't so much that these scams exist, but that youtube was actively recommending them to users, adding insult to injury, youtube was quicly taking down feeds from gamers commenting on the official reveal...
• kosolam 3y ago
  Facebook and YouTube are the worst. They should be trialed in class action suite as collaborators in all the scams they advertise on their platforms. I’m speaking of paid ads only.
  • berkes 3y ago
    I could easily imagine that a platform can be fined for any harm a scam did between being reported by anyone and them taking it down. Maybe not with current regulation, maybe not in the US. But in other places: why not? I report a scam, ads continues being shown is now a risk assessment to be taken by the platform. Though, now that I think of it, the first thing these platforms will do is to make reporting even harder.
• macinjosh 3y ago
  If I were one of YouTube's big ad customers who doesn't like my ads on videos spreading misinformation why would I be OK with the ad before or after mine being misinformation?
• rickreynoldssf 3y ago
  You're expecting too much from poorly trained contractors in India who review these reports (if a human reviews them at all).
• boxed 3y ago
  I reported an ad once. It was crazy difficult. So now I don't bother. If a reporting system is this difficult, one has to make the assumption that it's on purpose.
• resters 3y ago
  I love Youtube and consider it a major contribution to the modern world -- however it would have been "invented" within a few months regardless of who built if first and would have grown regardless of who acquired it. It's important to recall that Youtube grew not because of "you" -- there was really not any kind of creator ecosystem for the first phase of massive growth. Youtube grew because of piracy and the posting/distribution of copyrighted content. Unlike Napster which was blatantly P2P and obviously tried to circumvent copyright protections, Youtube had an official way for content owners to take steps to remove unauthorized content. In the days or weeks that it took to get content removed, it was copied and re-posted, and all the while Youtube continued to earn ad revenue from it until finally, many dollars later, it would be removed and successfully blocked. In Today's world, Youtube makes money by incentivizing generatively created garbage content, much of which is shown to kids, and by spamming promoted content into playlists and generally always preferring to play content that was promoted over non-promoted content. It's not clear how much of Youtube's revenue comes from quality content that people consume intentionally vs content that nobody would ever pay for that has managed to hijack the recommendation algorithm in some way.
  • toomuchtodo 3y ago
    If I had Facebook money, I'd use Peertube to create a clone of Youtube with the Internet Archive as the storage backend of last resort ($2/GB for perpetual storage). Trust and Safety team to keep the stuff out that could cause you to lose your safe harbor. Cloudflare for new, high demand content, serve from the datacenter long tail. Plug into ActivityPub, Wordpress, Mastodon, etc. Not quite Wikipedia for video, but similar governance and operating spirit.
    • RajT88 3y ago
      You probably could do that just with MySpace money.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  • 3y ago
• hiddencost 3y ago
  https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/ I suppose it would be nice if there were an easy way for everyone to do this.
  • robin_reala 3y ago
    Only works if you’re in the US presumably.
  • Nextgrid 3y ago
    If the reports don’t go straight to /dev/null, it would be ineffective anyway since the scammers are outside of US jurisdiction and operate under fake identities.
    • callalex 3y ago
      The scammer in this case is YouTube because they are taking money and promoting the scam. Now you can even say they are knowingly participating because the scam was reported to them and they claim to have reviewed the content.
• sys32768 3y ago
  Notice you don't see any scam ads featuring tobacco on YouTube. If you want to see Google enforce something, try running a tobacco ad anywhere on their platforms.
  • ddingus 3y ago
    Herman Cain ran one! And it is hilarious. Recommended.
  • mschuster91 3y ago
    Partially, that is because the production, export, import, sale and advertising of tobacco is strictly regulated in most countries... there isn't any money to be made for scammers, and the illicit actors that do exist (e.g. counterfeiters or smugglers) don't want to attract open attention or paper trails.
• genocidicbunny 3y ago
  But, but, don't you know that you can just pay YouTube a measly $14/month for Premium to avoid having them shove these blatant scams and grifts down your eyeballs?
• mitthrowaway2 3y ago
  Oh yeah the Elon Musk ad. I reported it to YouTube maybe a month ago. I think someone with a similar voice dubbed over a real Musk video, with pretty good lip-syncing. It's a pretty dangerous scam because it could really convince someone who is gullible.
  • zigman1 3y ago
    Doesn't even have to be a lip-sync, it could've simply been AI
• eatbitseveryday 3y ago
  My wife fell for a Macys look-alike scam on Facebook. I told her that these platforms do not vet the ads they display because it brings revenue.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• everyone 3y ago
  Re. ad blockers on youtube... I will vote with my wallet and never give Google a cent, I feel gross enough already even just using any service owned by them. They are typical giant corporation who corrupt everything they touch. I reckon for every hour of valuable software work that makes its way to the public, 50 hours of bullshit managerial "work" is done by a sucession of gobshites with increasingly inflated salaries. What actual value do they add? All the features and innovations they have made since acquiring youtube have been uniformly terrible, the best example is their pathetic attempt to ape tiktok with youtube shorts, so now they have two totally different systems awkwardly smooshed together on the same platform. They also, in classic Google fashion just randomly change the UI or randomly remove extremely useful publishing features for no reason on a weekly basis. They've pushed more and more ads. They've moderated and used the suggested videos features to encourage content farm garbage and punish actually good original content. The real value of youtube is the amazing content creators who make world beating content for free. The actually good ones are mostly demonetized by youtube and either make zero money or only make money from Patreon supporters. So the actual value of youtube is the content creators, and also the audience who go there to watch. Youtube has been around for a long time and is basically the place to upload longer videos. Google gained control of this value by buying youtube and since then they have sat on this communally created value and simply engaged in rent seeking behaviour.
• TrackerFF 3y ago
  I've noticed a huge uptick in the most obvious scams, when using my work PC (no ad-block!). Typical deepfakes of celebrities, where they've stolen some clip, and get the person to promote some crypto scam. It's laughable. Imagine being 80, and seeing Warren Buffet or Bill Gates on youtube promoting some random crypto brokerage, saying that you can create generational wealth TODAY! Since it's on youtube, it must be legit, right? EDIT: I believe one way to solve this, is by heavy handed regulation where you make the websites (YouTube, etc.) financially liable for scams they are facilitating through ads etc. Right now there seems to be zero incentives to removing this kind of stuff.
  • callalex 3y ago
    Why do you consider such regulation to be heavy handed? They have definitively proven that they are happy to profit by harming others.
  • tzfld 3y ago
    What if those ads appear on small websites and delivered by ad platforms like adsense? Who is liable?
• tgtweak 3y ago
  I've reported fraudulent ads (Ĕlon musk make $1ʘʘʘ/day) directly to a friend who works in safebrowsing team and they get pulled for a day or two before they're back.
• newsclues 3y ago
  I’ve seen scams ads on YouTube with fake videos of Justin Trudeau and Elon Musk and it’s clearly a problem that isn’t being addressed.
• dado3212 3y ago
  YouTube does not have the scale to manually review every time someone flags an ad. HN community believes that “oh, but MY report is high signal” which may be true, but user reports as a whole are not high signal. So instead it’s going through some ML classifier first. An automatic answer saying “this doesn’t go against policy” does not mean that it escalated to YT staff who carefully considered the ad and said “actually, this is okay because we really want the revenue.” It means that whatever ML classifier took a look at it thought it was okay (which is probably bugged, given their typical speed at taking down fake livestreams in this vein).
  • tivert 3y ago
    > YouTube does not have the scale to manually review every time someone flags an ad. HN community believes that “oh, but MY report is high signal” which may be true, but user reports as a whole are not high signal. So instead it’s going through some ML classifier first. So what? Youtube is trying to do the online equivalent of trying to police New York City with only 50 cops and a 911 answering machine that repeats "computer says no" on a loop. If New York City chooses to understaff their 911 call center, that's not an excuse for them not taking 911 calls.
  • ndriscoll 3y ago
    Google should be reviewing all ads they show, and should absolutely be liable for the content, especially if they're alerted to the fact that it's a scam (which makes them not just negligent but an accessory).
  • wharvle 3y ago
    Seems tough. Guess they should stop operating that kind of business if they can’t figure out how to do it without scamming people.
  • octacat 3y ago
    You can review them with AI. They have info where link goes, who pays for it, who is targeted. Scammers would have to be more creative, when you automatically detect 90% of them. But currently I can say "Oh, I've seen this scam comment/scam ad scheme 100 times". I am pretty sure AI would figure out the same.
• tivert 3y ago
  I love scam youtube ads. Some of them are so bad, they're good. I especially like the ones that layer in a totally fake creation story, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRl2aGUlu04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRl2aGUlu04.
  • raphman 3y ago
    Hah, these magic-heater ads seems to be more common than I thought. In another comment in this thread, I just linked to a different one (in German): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WorrpfjAYdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WorrpfjAYdc Yours is much more interesting though. Here's Big Clive doing a teardown on the device in your video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPnLnk35XsY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPnLnk35XsY
    • tivert 3y ago
      Thanks! > Yours is much more interesting though. Yeah, it's absurd in so many different ways. My favorite bit is the idea that "big heating" can get a kid expelled from school. It really is a piece of found art.
• we_love_idf 3y ago
  I don't understand who do people still keep using Google services. What are you expecting from a company like Google?
  • deelly 3y ago
    You did not use Android phone, never tried Google search, Google Bard, Chrome browser, never ever go to YouTube, never opened Google Maps, and refuse to open Google Doc or Google Sheet link?
• 8ytecoder 3y ago
  I fell for one of these ads on Instagram years ago. The ad was for a bike light with an innovative design. The website had a clean look and feel. They accepted paypal (again years ago). I’m usually very sceptical about scam but back then I naively assumed that you can’t just create an obvious scam ad like this without Facebook and Google catching you. Since you have to have a payment method in file I thought that’ll be a deterrent as well. I was totally fooled. The scammers even shipped me a super basic bike light to show proof that they actually shipped an item. I had to first file a claim with PayPal and they refunded me but only after some haggling. I reported the ad to Instagram with all the proof and pictures. I used their security/phishing contact to report this. The ad and the associated account was still there when I checked months later. I mean I can understand these companies not wanting to care about us measly users enough to respond to account related queries. But this is their bread and butter. If I don’t trust your ads anymore why on earth would I ever click or buy anything. If anything it makes all good businesses lose as well. That’s their real customers. I see people here defending YouTube that it’s understandable that YouTube doesn’t have the time to screen ads. I call bullshit. This is their core product. Ads. They have to care for their own and their customers’ (advertisers) sake.
• siproprio 3y ago
  In less than two decades, Google went from “Don't be evil” to “We censor fart jokes to provide brand safety for scammers using deepfake videos to prey on the poor”
• 1116574 3y ago
  Yep, my local city (over 1M residents) mayor was deep faked into selling crypto on yt ads. Reporting did nothing, I just got email 3 days later that the ad is alright. The voice was in local language, while subtitles were in English. They did not match, possibly to evade detection by the more advanced, English, tooling.
• klvino 3y ago
  YouTube isn't the only Google property knowingly allowing scams, Google Maps has some interesting activity if you dive into it. A "policy", regulation, or law only matters if it is enforceable and enforced. The digital platform policies are relatively meaningless, subjective enforcement, appeasement measure for advertisers. You will not see the needle move on video as fraud until the commission model for talent fees and use rights change for digital. A talent fee commission model results in industry tracking of creative content in order to route talent fees to actors and musicians. It is a secondary layer of tracking with funds attached that forces a platform to respond when illegal use of image and identity is reported.
  • neop1x 3y ago
    The Google search results are the same. When searching for driver's license preparation, ads appear offering the purchase of a driver's license without any tests.
• miah_ 3y ago
  Facebook has the same problem, see any FB group for endless "duct cleaning" or "bad roofs needed, buy our metal roof" spam. A few months ago it was "remote jobs at Amazon, follow this google doc link". They'll let it fly for months as it "generates activity" or some other metric, it will eventually die off when the spam campaign changes.
• throw310822 3y ago
  Confirmed. I flagged yesterday the Elon Musk deep fake promoting some investment scam, and got this answer after a few hours: "We’re writing to let you know that we reviewed your report (ID 1-3XXXXXXXXXX). Here's what we found We decided not to take this ad down. We found that the ad doesn’t go against Google’s policies, which prohibit certain content and practices that we believe to be harmful to users and the overall online ecosystem."
• mschuster91 3y ago
  Same here. The flood of ads I got recently pushing sketchy CFD trade platforms is goddamn annoying, and that's not even counting all the youtube channels pushing questionable stuff like Athletic Greens [2] or similar "quality" supplements and pills. At least on linear TV, there was some quality assurance in the ad buyer departments. Youtube, Google, Meta, the countless "chumbox" players (Taboola, Outbrain and others [1]) - they all thrive on letting everyone do whatever the f..k they want, with barely any human in loop. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumbox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumbox [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/dining/athletic-greens.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/dining/athletic-greens.ht...
• lopkeny12ko 3y ago
  How is this surprising or newsworthy in the slightest? These advertisers are paying Google lots of money; Google has no incentive to take them down.
  • trynumber9 3y ago
    It's not surprising. It's something we want fixed, however. And it's news to me that after being investigated they'd still keep this type of ad running. I really, really thought that they'd watch it, determine it to be predatory and remove it. Maybe it was delusional of me to expect Google to be reasonable when given the chance.
• kidsil 3y ago
  It's striking how history repeats itself. Just like TV and newspapers eventually faced regulations to prevent scam ads, the internet has been in a similar bind for at least a decade. The principles of law should extend to all mediums, yet it seems we're at a stalemate with federal regulations adapting to the digital age. This should've been handled back in 2012.
  • crowcroft 3y ago
    It baffles me how often behaviour that any 'traditional' media company would get slapped down for is just common practice in 'digital' media. 'Digital' isn't new anymore, but somehow it avoids growing up.
  • amne 3y ago
    What do you mean slow to adapt? We have transcended straight to cookie banners!
  • 1905 3y ago
    While KimDotCom was getting raided in New Zealand for "piracy", Youtube knowingly used pirated music and film media to grow its site
• __failbit 3y ago
  I constantly get served a Mr Beast related scam ad that promises a gift of 1000$ (I'm not even american!) along with fake mobile games that take gameplay footage from AAA games (Usually Demon's souls remake for some reason...). In all of my attempts to report them from being scams, i usually get an automated response within an hour telling that the ad is legitimate. Google just doesn't care.
• Waterluvian 3y ago
  I've been seeing YouTube ads for a fake Super Mario game. And it isn't even a lookalike, it actually says "Super Mario" in the title and uses completely ripped off assets. I've seen a ton of this kind of thing lately. Just the absolute toilet-scrapings of ad customers. It's almost as bad as Twitter some weeks. Google's in some serious trouble. They've hit maximum revenue stream, but the Jerrys[1] of the company rely on perpetual growth for their careers to exist, so they will push, consciously or unconsciously, to find more revenue anywhere, even by selling out the product's future. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20230919185431/https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-09/416421.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20230919185431/https://www.justi...
• dagurp 3y ago
  I keep getting betting ads which are illegal in my country
• celestialcheese 3y ago
  It's not just Youtube, it's across all of Google Ads. We had to hire someone to review ads in Google's ad transparency center. Every day they find dozens of new domains, with the same creatives - all those fake button "Continue"/"Download" click-trick ads. The same process every ad. Report to google, block on google, and send to a third party ad security company. The volume didn't start going down until we hired that third party ad security company to do blocking post-auction. Google continues to let the exact same creatives come through, just with different domains/ad accounts. Their models can handle this, they just choose not too. Seeing the CPMs these scam ads pay, it must make up a big portion of a reportable revenue source for google, where blocking would hurt their numbers for the quarter.
  • DebtDeflation 3y ago
    Not just Ads either. Have you used Google Shopping? Huge number of fake websites selling stuff. During Covid when you couldn't find a bicycle for sale anywhere, Google Shopping would yield dozens of sellers with websites that were just created a few days prior with tons of bikes for sale at great prices, all a complete scam.
• duxup 3y ago
  It is amazing that they don't care, it really creates a creepy atmosphere on Youtube. It taints the brand. I get gross out weird ads for what seem to be cleaning supplies but hell if I want to click on some weird gross mutant thing to figure it out. All sorts of forms of "Protect yourself from 5g / wi-fi / various weird things, brain interference / that induce confusion." products ... There's good content on Youtube, but man I can't help but think of it as much as a misinformation / scam platform with what they allow for ads.
• rasse 3y ago
  I reported one of these Elon deep fake ads. Google's response was: > We decided not to take this ad down. We found that the ad doesn’t go against Google’s policies, which prohibit certain content and practices that we believe to be harmful to users and the overall online ecosystem.
• TheWoodsy 3y ago
  I used to see these exact videos on twitch.tv for months during non US peak times. They were number one in viewers for about 15 minutes until they were reported and nuked. Refresh another five minutes later and they'd be back at number one. Cool side note: If you report on twitch.tv you get an email; If they do something about it, you get another email saying they actioned it.
• chgfxdfgg 3y ago
  IF YOU ARE USING A GOOGLE SERVICE, YOU ARE NOT THE CUSTOMER, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. Advertisers are the customers. Google customer service is for the customers, not for you. Even services that you pay for every month like Drive, they can lose all your data and you won’t be able to talk to a human about it. Photos will build anti-competitive walls around your content with no warning. Maps will track your every move and drown you in ads. Search and Youtube will profile you and steer you toward shallow promoted content. You are the product.
• jrmg 3y ago
  We’ve returned to the days of traveling medicine shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_show YouTube is just full of very obviously fraudulent tech and medical/health ads, especially if you’ve switched off ad personalization. Was it this bad on cable TV in the past? Isn’t the FTC meant to be actively policing things like this?
  • dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Isn’t the FTC meant to be actively policing things like this? No, generally the FTC is not designed, equipped, or funded for actively policing advertisements. Its consumer protection action is almost entirely complaint-based/reactive, not active. If you want active policing of advertisement by the FTC, you need to lobby Congress to vastly expand the FTC’s role and funding.
• BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  But they keep trying to take down the addons we use to protect us against them: ad blockers.
• lynx23 3y ago
  No surprise. In a sense, I bought my premium because I was fed up with scam. I wouldn't mind targeted ads if they are not too excessive. But watching a gambling scam tailor-made for my (adittably) small country broke the camels back for me. Apparently, there is no "with malice intent" clause anywhere, otherwise these ads would be illegal everywhere by default.
• joemi 3y ago
  Don't report the Elon ads to google, report them to Elon, then maybe some action will be taken.
• heisenbit 3y ago
  Considering the here documented willful ignorance of Google I wonder at what point this crosses over into the criminal domain or would be sufficient to give raise to class action suits of fraud victims.
• kspacewalk2 3y ago
  >deep fake Elon Musk saying that he has built an AI powered trading bot that will allow you to make 1 million dollars in 6 months risk free and to be honest i can't tell that it is deep fake, it looks very real. I recall seeing this and noting how, while I'm fairly certain it's a deep fake, I wouldn't be that shocked if it wasn't. As far as reputations go, Elon Musk really does seem like he'll say just about anything these days, and what he won't say he'll re-tweet.
• ChrisArchitect 3y ago
  https://reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/18gjiqy/youtube_doesnt_want_to_take_down_scam_ads/ https://reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/18gjiqy/youtube_doesnt... So much whining from YouTube addicts. Never seen any ad like this. And I block ads manually all the time for other more 'regular' things. Maybe if you weren't always watching videos about Elon and Crypto you wouldn't see these thrown in the mix. You're the target!
  • gab007 3y ago
    True that! That does not absolve Youtube / Google from anything, however.
  • nassimm 3y ago
    You get similar scams when watching videos about investment, CNBC and the likes.
• victor22 3y ago
  Same for all blatantly obvious scams that I report to Instagram or Facebook, all stay on and they say didn't break any policies... They're nasty
• sebaz6r 3y ago
  I made the same observation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38555440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38555440
• michaelteter 3y ago
  There's one ad that sounds like Donald Trump (it's an AI voice gen) promoting Donald Trump gold bars. It's not a short ad; I've seen it several times, so one of the times I recorded it. At the end, there's a brief display which says: "Disclaimer. This ad and it's entirety is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Donald Trump or any political party associated with him. The content and views expressed on this ad are solely those of the website owner and contributors, and they do not represent the opinions or official positions of Donald Trump or his party. Any references to individuals, organizations, or political figures are used for informational purposes only and do not imply endorsement or association. This ad also has no affiliation with Donald Trump and his party in any way. Additionally, this ad is not endorsed by Donald Trump and his party in any capacity. Lastly, the audio used in this ad was computer generated. Thank you and enjoy!" The link goes to "Free Trump Gold -> wewillbegreatagain dot co". I didn't bother clicking the link, but I searched and found that this scam ad has been in existence for over a year. I'm no lawyer, but I would be really surprised if this obvious attempt to ride on someone's name/(in)fame was legal. Surely Trump could sue this person for what they are doing. Surely normal people have flagged this ad to YouTube, but it's still up. When searching for details about this particular ad, I read about general frustation people have with the vast number of scam ads on Truth Social. But that's a whole other topic...
  • raphman 3y ago
    > "It's not a short ad; I've seen it several times, so one of the times I recorded it." FWIW, YouTube ads are just normal, unlisted videos. You can get their ID by: - right-clicking on the video while the ad is playing, - selecting 'Stats for nerds', - copying the 'Video ID' from the debug info in the top left corner, - appending this ID to 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=' This also allows you to see the account associated with the ad and how often this ad has been played already. For example, here's a (German) scam ad promoting a cheap ceramic heater as having "effectively no energy costs": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WorrpfjAYdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WorrpfjAYdc
    • michaelteter 3y ago
• dools 3y ago
  ABC Australia’s MediaWatch did a good segment on this recently (starting 10:09): https://youtu.be/ziVHNDFxtno?si=6i4JMYHF1YxLvopJ https://youtu.be/ziVHNDFxtno?si=6i4JMYHF1YxLvopJ
• mihirnaik 3y ago
  I have seen many ads on YouTube, Google Ads, Google Display too. There are similar ads on twitter and LinkedIn too. It seems like they don't have a handle on the quality of ads nowadays. Looking at the advancements in Machine Learning capabilities it's hard to believe they are not able to detect these.
• MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago
  Ad-free content really is possible, and Amazon is showing us how to do it. (Despite the fact that they themselves host ads.) Amazon (however unlikely) could viably come out with an ad-free YouTube competitor, backed by Prime subscription dollars. As long as the costs are in order they could let it stew for a decade while it slowly pulls users away from other platforms. Heck Netflix could do the same thing, although they seem to be drawn towards ads, sadly. X.com would probably love to do something similar, but they don't have enough services to match the value of Prime.
  • gurchik 3y ago
    > Ad-free content really is possible, and Amazon is showing us how to do it. I’m not sure I understand. Amazon Video requires a paid subscription, by that logic YouTube also has ad-free content (if you pay for Premium). Not to mention, Prime Video is introducing ads next year unless you pay an extra ad-free fee.[1] 1: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/entertainment/prime-video-update-announces-limited-ads https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/entertainment/prime-video-u...
• jbverschoor 3y ago
  Same here fakes using Michael Saylor and Microstrategy. Sometimes using livestreams
• calderknight 3y ago
  It seems very much more likely that YT has ineffective moderation than that it doesn't want to take down scam ads.
  • Jakob-G 3y ago
    That's kind of the same thing. They don't improve their moderation because they don't want to take down scams, so they can make as much revenue as possible.
    • calderknight 3y ago
      Nah, more likely they're just trying to save money on labour costs. I'm guessing they'd love to remove the scams.
• droalf1 3y ago
  Many Scam ads and they ask to pay by Paypal. When you are scammed Paypal refuse to refund. This is something that Youtube must be knowing and Paypal must be knowing and they are allowing users to get scammed.
• NoobSaibot135 3y ago
  During the 2nd Starship launch (most recent one), there were a few scam SpaceX live streams on YouTube where they would play footage of Elon on stage at night from when starship was first unveiled. The scammers would overlay an AI deep fake of Elon’s voice and push a crypto currency scam! Those channels were called SpaceXUS or SpaceXLive etc. with legit looking SpaceX logo. Somehow they managed to gain 1k live followers to boost it in the YouTube algo.
• agborkowski86 3y ago
  same for Facebook
• johny115 3y ago
  That explains everything. In my country Czechia, there are ongoing scam ads on YouTube and Instagram where the president of our country supposedly passed some law to give every citizen free money, if they invest via some broker into our biggest energy producer. It links to fake news site (copy of the biggest news site in the country), with fake news detailing our president just passed and to rush to get your free money. It's absolutely insane. I reported it multiple times and always just get "it doesnt break any policices". What? :D It's pure cancer. I only saw this because of the recent YouTube adblock drama after disabling my uBlock after years. YouTube wants me hard to get back to watch ads, these ads, yea thanks no. At least some ads on Instagram are relevant.
• SZJX 3y ago
  This has been my experience for a while. The rate of scammy ads has been on the rise recently (I mostly only see them from within my Gmail app) and reporting does nothing. Not a good look for Google though not sure they’ll care as long as money keeps flowing.