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The ad industry likes to say that their industry is clean and the people who buy ads for scams are the problem, but the truth is the entire industry is complici

The ad industry likes to say that their industry is clean and the people who buy ads for scams are the problem, but the truth is the entire industry is complicit with the scamming, and stuff like this shows it. If the ad industry were merely hapless victims of the scammers, rather than willful participants in the scamming, they'd be eager to receive reports of scams.

mrweasel 1y ago
That's a really good point. If the problem is the scammers, and they buy ads, then why won't they let us report it?
- rchaud 1y ago
  Because they don't want to drive off business.
jrmg 1y ago
For me, almost every YouTube ad is a scam. Medical supplements or plans that make claims that clearly aren’t real, financial scams (crypto or get-rich-quick schemes), or product scams (this new device that ‘they’ don’t want you to know about can heat/cool your house in minutes for pennies!). I’m pretty sure none of this is legal, and Google obviously doesn’t care. FWIW I have ad personalization off - perhaps it’s a bit better for those who don’t?
- svieira 1y ago
  Quite a bit - I get ads for septic tanks because I have looked at them several times and tank companies continue to advertise for me because I might buy. I get ads for robot mowers because, again, I looked at them. I still see "the bottom of the barrel" ads occasionally, but it's very rare. Ad blitzes on the other hand ... (no, I don't want to build an app just-by-thinking-about-it) ...
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    At one point a few months ago, YouTube seems to have gotten the idea that I have some kind of bowel problem, and I'd constantly get ads about my "stuck poop." WTF? I'm watching a woodworking tutorial, I don't want to fucking hear about poop! Total bottom of the barrel.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - kbelder 1y ago
      Several months ago, my wife bought several bottles of pureed pumpkin babyfood, because small amounts added to catfood can treat some feline stomach issues. Now, we're getting diaper commercials all over youtube. I assume we're flagged in some database as likely having a new child, but you can't ever know for sure.
      - fragmede 1y ago
        https://myadcenter.google.com/personalizationoff https://myadcenter.google.com/personalizationoff You can look up your Google ad profile and see if "pregnant" is one of your account's attributes. Facebook has a similar page somewhere.
    - jrmg 1y ago
      FWIW, those seem to be a current ‘trend’. I’m getting them with personalization switched off.
- chamomeal 1y ago
  I used to get SO MANY “heres how I make $6,000/day in passive income with chatGPT”. I reported am all, I know it never did anything
  - yifanl 1y ago
    I wonder if reporting them gives them more engagement, since that would mean you watched it and paid enough attention.
    - 1-more 1y ago
      From when I worked in the video ad industry, the industry standard was that an impression was binary and seeing a single frame of the ad counted. IDK if YouTube follows the Interactive Advertising Bureau guidelines, but they probably do. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xandr/industry-reference/impression-counting https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xandr/industry-reference/i...
DelightOne 1y ago
I bet they tried an llm scam detector. It was too good so they didn't put it into production.
- genewitch 1y ago
  i can write that in like 2 minutes in any language you want. `pseudo main( return True )` There's a difference between "Need a tree cut down? I am licensed and bonded and cut down trees; call ###" and the sort of things that we all consider "ads". If someone can't see a difference, then that someone probably receives money from advertising.
  - lupusreal 1y ago
    One of the few sorts of ads I'm okay with are those sort of ads for local businesses on the paper placemats at local restaurants. Those stick around and are seen by countless people so if it's a scam word will get around.
  - kbelder 1y ago
    Well, that code would be over 95% accurate.
mort96 1y ago
I feel like there are almost two completely incompatible stories being sold by ad tech people. One is that "you shouldn't use an ad blocker, reputable websites have ads from Google and other reputable companies and they wouldn't be scams or malware". The other is that any time there's a story about malware and scams on reputable websites, they say: "there are so many ads being submitted, Google is doing their best but you can't expect them to successfully weed out every single bad ad". The reality is, of course, that Google and its ilk doesn't give a single rat's ass about people falling from scams or getting infected by malware. Scams and malware pays better than "ethical" ads (to the degree that such a thing exists). It's a travesty that there are apparently no laws against their behavior.
- tbrownaw 1y ago
  > One is that "you shouldn't use an ad blocker, reputable websites have ads from Google and other reputable companies and they wouldn't be scams or malware". But I don't care* about that, I care that they're visually obnoxious and sometimes slow. * Well, usually. Way back when, there used to be occasional news about browser sandbox escapes.
  - mort96 1y ago
    I agree, I would be using an ad blocker even if all the ads were "only" annoying attempts at manipulating my behavior rather than scams and malware. But pointing out that ads can damage your computer or scam you out of money or information is a stronger pro-ad-blocking argument.
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  > It's a travesty that there are apparently no laws against their behavior. there is in the UK. And likely in most other jurisdictions too. But it's about penalizing the advertisers rather than the platform. Which clearly neither works at scale nor across borders. This definitely feels like a better use case for an "online safety act" -- but instead we got censorship laws....
  - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
Forgeties79 1y ago
It also doesn’t help that so many creators - even legitimate ones - now use injected ads that they don’t verify at all. I remember listening to an episode of Better Offline a buddy sent me and anyone who knows about Ed knows that basically half his crusade is against bad AI implementation/“slop”/etc. He’s broadly against the current LLM rush. First ad when I fired up the podcast episode was yet aother injected ad for yet another AI agent company as generic as the rest. Literally the organizations he’s railing against and calling wasteful. It was clearly because he handed off the advertising to one of these injection services. Sidebar: these ads tend to perform terribly. Actual ad reads by the host(s) are the only thing that lead to meaningful conversions in podcasts.
- rchaud 1y ago
  If they post the episode on Youtube, download an audio stream of that file instead. No ads injected there.
- genewitch 1y ago
  where are the ads injected? I use a couple of podcast "apps" and neither inject ads, all ads in podcasts are explicitly put into the audio file by the people making the podcast, even pre-roll and post-roll ads.
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    That’s a (good) choice by the shows you listen to. There are plenty of ad injection services for podcasting, pretty sure Acast (popular hosting service) has it built in for instance. Search “DAI podcast” or “dynamic ad insertion podcast.” The biggest giveaway is when the ads are dropped in the middle of someone talking. Pretty much any hits that are manually added are led into by the hosts if it’s mid-show.
  - fknorangesite 1y ago
    > all ads in podcasts are explicitly put into the audio file by the people making the podcast Yes, but those are dynamic too: if you go back and download old episodes, for example, you'll get the current run of ads.
secondcoming 1y ago
Websites get to control what ads are displayed. If a website integrates with Taboola they're explixitly opting in to these crap ads.
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  What's YouTube's excuse?
  - secondcoming 1y ago
    They allow them, and people who have ad personalisation disabled are probably seeing more of them
    - hnlmorg 1y ago
      Yes, but YT obviously doesn't use Taboola and it's still infested with scam ads.
- conradfr 1y ago
  It doesn't work for adsense as they basically get a new account every day so you can't effectively block scams.
  - edoceo 1y ago
    Google can't figure out rate-limiting and trust-leveling/ramp? Sure they can; it just slows the money-pipe
    - conradfr 1y ago
      Google could but I was responding to "the website that integrates ads can".
- asdfwaafsfw 1y ago
  random question for you - do you still have your Dave Bull Great Wave and would you sell it?
Intermernet 1y ago
Just remember, advertising is responsible for the rage economy. It's responsible for platforming misinformation. It's responsible for screen-addiction in children. It's responsible for online scams. Just think of all of the proposed laws and regulations around the world that are trying to counter each of these problems and remember that the root cause, and enabler of all of them is advertising. It's truly an amplifier of enshittification, and one of the worst conduits of bad social behaviour ever invented. If you're in the ad / ad-tech industry, please seriously consider the effect you're having on the world. I'm happy to pay for media, news, social networks etc. I don't purchase things based on anything other than personal recommendations and research. I have no use for advertising, and I have no desire or need for ad-supported platforms. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. People say advertising works, and that justifies it. The thing is, advertising only works on enough people to justify it. Everyone else hates it with a passion, or studiously avoids it. I'm not sure if we're a majority or a minority, it doesn't matter, but we suffer advertising and wish it were gone. Advertising needs to change. It would be nice if it just went away, but realistically that's not going to happen. It needs to be recognised as harmful and regulated as a harmful product.
- genewitch 1y ago
  Explicit (seriously, explicit) Bill Hicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9wStdPkQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9wStdPkQY We've known that advertising is "filling the world with bile and garbage" for decades.
ghurtado 1y ago
> The ad industry likes to say that their industry is clean First I've ever heard this, and I have been working in marketing all my life. What exactly do you mean by this? Where have you heard it?
chrisjj 1y ago
> The ad industry likes to say that their industry is clean and the people who buy ads for scams are the problem Hmm. How are these people not part of the industry exactly?

mrweasel 1y ago

That's a really good point. If the problem is the scammers, and they buy ads, then why won't they let us report it?

rchaud 1y ago
Because they don't want to drive off business.

jrmg 1y ago

For me, almost every YouTube ad is a scam. Medical supplements or plans that make claims that clearly aren’t real, financial scams (crypto or get-rich-quick schemes), or product scams (this new device that ‘they’ don’t want you to know about can heat/cool your house in minutes for pennies!). I’m pretty sure none of this is legal, and Google obviously doesn’t care. FWIW I have ad personalization off - perhaps it’s a bit better for those who don’t?

svieira 1y ago
Quite a bit - I get ads for septic tanks because I have looked at them several times and tank companies continue to advertise for me because I might buy. I get ads for robot mowers because, again, I looked at them. I still see "the bottom of the barrel" ads occasionally, but it's very rare. Ad blitzes on the other hand ... (no, I don't want to build an app just-by-thinking-about-it) ...
- ryandrake 1y ago
  At one point a few months ago, YouTube seems to have gotten the idea that I have some kind of bowel problem, and I'd constantly get ads about my "stuck poop." WTF? I'm watching a woodworking tutorial, I don't want to fucking hear about poop! Total bottom of the barrel.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - kbelder 1y ago
    Several months ago, my wife bought several bottles of pureed pumpkin babyfood, because small amounts added to catfood can treat some feline stomach issues. Now, we're getting diaper commercials all over youtube. I assume we're flagged in some database as likely having a new child, but you can't ever know for sure.
    - fragmede 1y ago
      https://myadcenter.google.com/personalizationoff https://myadcenter.google.com/personalizationoff You can look up your Google ad profile and see if "pregnant" is one of your account's attributes. Facebook has a similar page somewhere.
  - jrmg 1y ago
    FWIW, those seem to be a current ‘trend’. I’m getting them with personalization switched off.
chamomeal 1y ago
I used to get SO MANY “heres how I make $6,000/day in passive income with chatGPT”. I reported am all, I know it never did anything
- yifanl 1y ago
  I wonder if reporting them gives them more engagement, since that would mean you watched it and paid enough attention.
  - 1-more 1y ago
    From when I worked in the video ad industry, the industry standard was that an impression was binary and seeing a single frame of the ad counted. IDK if YouTube follows the Interactive Advertising Bureau guidelines, but they probably do. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xandr/industry-reference/impression-counting https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xandr/industry-reference/i...

DelightOne 1y ago

I bet they tried an llm scam detector. It was too good so they didn't put it into production.

genewitch 1y ago
i can write that in like 2 minutes in any language you want. `pseudo main( return True )` There's a difference between "Need a tree cut down? I am licensed and bonded and cut down trees; call ###" and the sort of things that we all consider "ads". If someone can't see a difference, then that someone probably receives money from advertising.
- lupusreal 1y ago
  One of the few sorts of ads I'm okay with are those sort of ads for local businesses on the paper placemats at local restaurants. Those stick around and are seen by countless people so if it's a scam word will get around.
- kbelder 1y ago
  Well, that code would be over 95% accurate.

mort96 1y ago

I feel like there are almost two completely incompatible stories being sold by ad tech people. One is that "you shouldn't use an ad blocker, reputable websites have ads from Google and other reputable companies and they wouldn't be scams or malware". The other is that any time there's a story about malware and scams on reputable websites, they say: "there are so many ads being submitted, Google is doing their best but you can't expect them to successfully weed out every single bad ad". The reality is, of course, that Google and its ilk doesn't give a single rat's ass about people falling from scams or getting infected by malware. Scams and malware pays better than "ethical" ads (to the degree that such a thing exists). It's a travesty that there are apparently no laws against their behavior.

tbrownaw 1y ago
> One is that "you shouldn't use an ad blocker, reputable websites have ads from Google and other reputable companies and they wouldn't be scams or malware". But I don't care* about that, I care that they're visually obnoxious and sometimes slow. * Well, usually. Way back when, there used to be occasional news about browser sandbox escapes.
- mort96 1y ago
  I agree, I would be using an ad blocker even if all the ads were "only" annoying attempts at manipulating my behavior rather than scams and malware. But pointing out that ads can damage your computer or scam you out of money or information is a stronger pro-ad-blocking argument.
hnlmorg 1y ago
> It's a travesty that there are apparently no laws against their behavior. there is in the UK. And likely in most other jurisdictions too. But it's about penalizing the advertisers rather than the platform. Which clearly neither works at scale nor across borders. This definitely feels like a better use case for an "online safety act" -- but instead we got censorship laws....
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago

Forgeties79 1y ago

It also doesn’t help that so many creators - even legitimate ones - now use injected ads that they don’t verify at all. I remember listening to an episode of Better Offline a buddy sent me and anyone who knows about Ed knows that basically half his crusade is against bad AI implementation/“slop”/etc. He’s broadly against the current LLM rush. First ad when I fired up the podcast episode was yet aother injected ad for yet another AI agent company as generic as the rest. Literally the organizations he’s railing against and calling wasteful. It was clearly because he handed off the advertising to one of these injection services. Sidebar: these ads tend to perform terribly. Actual ad reads by the host(s) are the only thing that lead to meaningful conversions in podcasts.

rchaud 1y ago
If they post the episode on Youtube, download an audio stream of that file instead. No ads injected there.
genewitch 1y ago
where are the ads injected? I use a couple of podcast "apps" and neither inject ads, all ads in podcasts are explicitly put into the audio file by the people making the podcast, even pre-roll and post-roll ads.
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  That’s a (good) choice by the shows you listen to. There are plenty of ad injection services for podcasting, pretty sure Acast (popular hosting service) has it built in for instance. Search “DAI podcast” or “dynamic ad insertion podcast.” The biggest giveaway is when the ads are dropped in the middle of someone talking. Pretty much any hits that are manually added are led into by the hosts if it’s mid-show.
- fknorangesite 1y ago
  > all ads in podcasts are explicitly put into the audio file by the people making the podcast Yes, but those are dynamic too: if you go back and download old episodes, for example, you'll get the current run of ads.

secondcoming 1y ago

Websites get to control what ads are displayed. If a website integrates with Taboola they're explixitly opting in to these crap ads.

hnlmorg 1y ago
What's YouTube's excuse?
- secondcoming 1y ago
  They allow them, and people who have ad personalisation disabled are probably seeing more of them
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    Yes, but YT obviously doesn't use Taboola and it's still infested with scam ads.
conradfr 1y ago
It doesn't work for adsense as they basically get a new account every day so you can't effectively block scams.
- edoceo 1y ago
  Google can't figure out rate-limiting and trust-leveling/ramp? Sure they can; it just slows the money-pipe
  - conradfr 1y ago
    Google could but I was responding to "the website that integrates ads can".
asdfwaafsfw 1y ago
random question for you - do you still have your Dave Bull Great Wave and would you sell it?

Intermernet 1y ago

Just remember, advertising is responsible for the rage economy. It's responsible for platforming misinformation. It's responsible for screen-addiction in children. It's responsible for online scams. Just think of all of the proposed laws and regulations around the world that are trying to counter each of these problems and remember that the root cause, and enabler of all of them is advertising. It's truly an amplifier of enshittification, and one of the worst conduits of bad social behaviour ever invented. If you're in the ad / ad-tech industry, please seriously consider the effect you're having on the world. I'm happy to pay for media, news, social networks etc. I don't purchase things based on anything other than personal recommendations and research. I have no use for advertising, and I have no desire or need for ad-supported platforms. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. People say advertising works, and that justifies it. The thing is, advertising only works on enough people to justify it. Everyone else hates it with a passion, or studiously avoids it. I'm not sure if we're a majority or a minority, it doesn't matter, but we suffer advertising and wish it were gone. Advertising needs to change. It would be nice if it just went away, but realistically that's not going to happen. It needs to be recognised as harmful and regulated as a harmful product.

genewitch 1y ago
Explicit (seriously, explicit) Bill Hicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9wStdPkQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9wStdPkQY We've known that advertising is "filling the world with bile and garbage" for decades.

ghurtado 1y ago

> The ad industry likes to say that their industry is clean First I've ever heard this, and I have been working in marketing all my life. What exactly do you mean by this? Where have you heard it?

chrisjj 1y ago

> The ad industry likes to say that their industry is clean and the people who buy ads for scams are the problem Hmm. How are these people not part of the industry exactly?