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They care about making money, but malicious extensions: damage the Google/Chrome brand, often are directly distorting the search experience and it opens them up

They care about making money, but malicious extensions: damage the Google/Chrome brand, often are directly distorting the search experience and it opens them up to long tail liability (think Cambridge Analytica). The problem is the organization isn't set up to promote people for proactively managing these risks. Similar to why Twitter never got rid of the bots

gruez 2y ago
>They care about making money, but malicious extensions: damage the Google/Chrome brand, often are directly distorting the search experience and it opens them up to long tail liability (think Cambridge Analytica). More importantly, they're not getting paid for any of the malicious addons. Sure, they might be getting a cut when they show fake download button (because they run the ad network), but what are they getting when sensor tower exfiltrates your browsing history? At best they're helping their competitors get better targeting data.
- rKarpinski 2y ago
  Disagree, they are getting paid. Fake views, Fake clicks, Fake users on their platforms inflating the numbers. Making money off them didn't incentivize the grifts from coming about, but it slows down getting rid of it
  - gruez 2y ago
    >Fake views, Fake clicks, Fake users on their platforms inflating the numbers. ??? How does this apply to a malicious third party addon?
    - rKarpinski 2y ago
      Because the extensions generate fake engagement on Google's properties & ad-network for affiliate fraud.
      - gruez 2y ago
        Where's the evidence for that? The OP only mentions affiliate fraud and user data harvesting. Neither of that seem to benefit google. To my knowledge google doesn't run an affiliate network, and data harvesting likely helps rival ad networks rather than google.
        rKarpinski 2y ago
        It's part of the affiliate fraud...
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        gruez 2y ago
        Just because there's affiliate fraud happening doesn't mean google is benefiting. What evidence is there that google is benefiting? Are they even using google's affiliate network? Does google even have one?
        rKarpinski 2y ago
        Is it that you don't believe these pieces of malware are generating fake engagement on Google's properties? Or that Clicks, Views & Users don't matter to Google?
        gruez 2y ago
        >Is it that you don't believe these pieces of malware are generating fake engagement on Google's properties? The extensions engage in affiliate fraud (ie. injecting affiliate code/cookies to links/sessions) and collect user data. That hardly counts as "engagement on Google's properties", which are mostly search ads and youtube. To my knowledge google doesn't have an affiliate network, so they're not getting anything there either. You seem to imply that the extensions are engaging in ad fraud (eg. viewing/clicking on ads), but there's no evidence of that presented in the OP or in this comment section.

gruez 2y ago

>They care about making money, but malicious extensions: damage the Google/Chrome brand, often are directly distorting the search experience and it opens them up to long tail liability (think Cambridge Analytica). More importantly, they're not getting paid for any of the malicious addons. Sure, they might be getting a cut when they show fake download button (because they run the ad network), but what are they getting when sensor tower exfiltrates your browsing history? At best they're helping their competitors get better targeting data.

rKarpinski 2y ago
Disagree, they are getting paid. Fake views, Fake clicks, Fake users on their platforms inflating the numbers. Making money off them didn't incentivize the grifts from coming about, but it slows down getting rid of it
- gruez 2y ago
  >Fake views, Fake clicks, Fake users on their platforms inflating the numbers. ??? How does this apply to a malicious third party addon?
  - rKarpinski 2y ago
    Because the extensions generate fake engagement on Google's properties & ad-network for affiliate fraud.
    - gruez 2y ago
      Where's the evidence for that? The OP only mentions affiliate fraud and user data harvesting. Neither of that seem to benefit google. To my knowledge google doesn't run an affiliate network, and data harvesting likely helps rival ad networks rather than google.
      - rKarpinski 2y ago
        It's part of the affiliate fraud...
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        gruez 2y ago
        Just because there's affiliate fraud happening doesn't mean google is benefiting. What evidence is there that google is benefiting? Are they even using google's affiliate network? Does google even have one?
        rKarpinski 2y ago
        Is it that you don't believe these pieces of malware are generating fake engagement on Google's properties? Or that Clicks, Views & Users don't matter to Google?
        gruez 2y ago
        >Is it that you don't believe these pieces of malware are generating fake engagement on Google's properties? The extensions engage in affiliate fraud (ie. injecting affiliate code/cookies to links/sessions) and collect user data. That hardly counts as "engagement on Google's properties", which are mostly search ads and youtube. To my knowledge google doesn't have an affiliate network, so they're not getting anything there either. You seem to imply that the extensions are engaging in ad fraud (eg. viewing/clicking on ads), but there's no evidence of that presented in the OP or in this comment section.