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I would suggest putting a sentence like “google ads can show a trustworthy/trademarked url (such as YouTube.com) but if the user clicks, the link actually goes
by fshbbdssbbgdd 2y ago
I would suggest putting a sentence like “google ads can show a trustworthy/trademarked url (such as YouTube.com) but if the user clicks, the link actually goes to evilscam.com” in the first paragraph. I didn’t understand that this might be what the article is about until clicking through to the examples and still felt uncertain about it until reading the comments here.
The language about how the tech companies are complicit, have a negative effect on society etc is dramatic. I think more focus on the mechanics of the fraud and how it works and less ideology would make the piece more credible. If the article makes it very clear how companies are screwing up, the reader will make those judgments on their own.
- jart 2y agoYeah they made the classic mistake of writing an article using the kind of manipulative rhetoric that typically works on 100 IQ people, and then sharing it with Hacker News.
- cool_dude85 2y agoThe first example provided explains the situation exactly - a link that google shows as going to gimp.org in fact takes the user to scam.com (or whatever). Is the "manipulative rhetoric" you're referring to an expectation that a reader actually read the article?
- fshbbdssbbgdd 2y agoAre you referring to one of the many twitter links? I didn’t see that in the article itself.
- pcthrowaway 2y ago> but if the user clicks, the link actually goes to evilscam.com Often it's more like youtue.com, something the user is unlikely to notice as a slight deviation from the expected URL