4 ms·

I'm fond of the ones with a fake close button, so tapping it just launches the ad's site. Instant uninstall and 1-star. (Yes, I know it's mostly the ad's fault

by Groxx 10mo ago

I'm fond of the ones with a fake close button, so tapping it just launches the ad's site. Instant uninstall and 1-star. (Yes, I know it's mostly the ad's fault, but there's no practical way to punish them directly. So force apps to pick better-behaving networks.)

immibis 10mo ago
IME it's a real close button but the ad opens the thing when it closes, regardless of how it closes.
- jordwest 10mo ago
  A common trick is that the first click on the X will go to the ad, but if you return and click the X again it will close, gaslighting you into thinking you just misclicked the first time. Another trick that I’ve noticed on the Reddit app is that the tappable area is much larger for ads than normal posts. If you tap even near the ad it will visit the ad
  - DrewADesign 10mo ago
    Also making the hit area smaller than the close graphic itself is a popular one.
- Groxx 10mo ago
  No, I mean there are ads with a "close button" in the corner, and then a few seconds later the real close button will appear and it'll weirdly overlap it. Because the first one was fake, just part of the image asset of the ad. They're very very clearly click-fraud tricks, and most platforms will ban them if they're caught. But by clicking on the ad, it closes the ad, and there's no way to go back and report them, nor incentive for ad-viewers to do so. By design, IMO. The whole industry runs on scams like this, there's no incentive for large platforms to proactively block any of them because they lead to money moving through them, where they can extract their rent. They only move against the most egregious, to keep fraud at the same barely-acceptable level as all the others.
  - mbirth 10mo ago
    > The whole industry runs on scams like this Wasn’t there an article here a few days ago about Facebook specialising in hiding such malicious ads from testers and law enforcement to maximise gains?
    - Groxx 10mo ago
      Yep: https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-created-playbook-fend-off-pressure-crack-down-scammers-documents-show-2025-12-31/ https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-created-playbook...
      - mbirth 10mo ago
        And here's the HN discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446838
    - transcriptase 10mo ago
      Yes. Basically the internet version of the Volkswagen emissions scandal. if(testdetected == 1) ecm.lowemissions else lmao.fuckyouregulators
      - red-iron-pine 10mo ago
        the difference is that the average rube and/or average lawmaker have some basic understanding of how cars work. petrol goes in, toxic gas comes out, so make toxic gas less. most of them have 0% understanding as to how data mining works or how online ads (and scams) function
        immibis 10mo ago
        It was about advertising for scams, not tracking. That's easier to understand than a car.
DrewADesign 10mo ago
As a sometimes designer, i don’t think there’s any distinction between punishing the ad and the company. The company bought the ad, probably directed its creation, and decided what its criteria was for success. 1-star away as far as I’m concerned.
- nemomarx 10mo ago
  I think they mean they leave a 1 star review on the app that was displaying the ad, who probably didn't directly do any of that. They did work with a bad ad network though so it's a valid enough reason to complain imo.
  - DrewADesign 10mo ago
    Yeah, good call, but I honestly have no problem with that 1-star either. They can’t say “well we just opened the garbage conduit and pointed it at your face… we didn’t actually MAKE the garbage.” Those ads are part of their app experience, now. They published it, so they’re ’re responsible for it. If it sucks I give it a sucky rating.
    - Groxx 10mo ago
      Yep. There's no other way to maybe-convince them to get a different ad provider, because they're the ones that chose it (probably because it paid the most).
- josephg 10mo ago
  I feel the same way about newsletters. “Hey you bought socks that one time! Want more socks??” -> Unsubscribe. “Hey it’s your weekly sock news! What’s new in socks!” -> But I unsubscribed! Haha no, you only unsubscribed from the “product releases” list. Not the “weekly news” list or our 10 other fabulous mailing lists! -> Report all emails from this domain as spam. May god have mercy on your soul, cute socks.
  - rkomorn 10mo ago
flexagoon 10mo ago
This is usually against ad network rules, so if you're willing to go out of your way a bit, you can screenshot those ads and report directly to the ad network
- kaoD 10mo ago
  QA is something an employee should do, not me.
- kotaKat 10mo ago
  Difficulty is when you don't know what ad network it is, the app hides the ad network they use, and refuse to disclose who it is. You got served an ad from "one of our partners". That's all you'll get to know, and there's no mechanism to even report the app's shitty behavior to Google or Apple (and they don't care when the app becomes too large, either).
- Groxx 10mo ago
  Which is often not possible because clicking an ad generally closes the ad. And there's no incentive for users to report, by design IMO. They could have a separate ad-reporting UI in every ad-running app (so you can report stuff later), and they could reward valid reports by skipping all ads on their network for a month or something, but doing that would reduce fraud, and that means reducing their profit. So none of them do it. I'd say they probably need an oversight committee with teeth, to strongly punish every single violation (so the networks develop functional defenses), but they'll probably just VW-emissions-fraud their way around it.
thaumasiotes 10mo ago
I'm not sure that is mostly the ad's fault. Hitting a target on a touchscreen is hard to do. This seems like it's the phone's fault first to me. (If you're using a mouse, forget what I said. But I haven't run into an ad where the close button didn't close it... if you were able to click the close button.)
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- wsc981 10mo ago
  On iOS I have seen ads with very small close buttons, so clearly intended to cause people to miss-click. Buttons should be 44x44 pixels, it’s recommended in the human interface guidelines [0]. —— [0]: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/buttons https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

by Groxx 10mo ago

immibis 10mo ago

IME it's a real close button but the ad opens the thing when it closes, regardless of how it closes.

jordwest 10mo ago
A common trick is that the first click on the X will go to the ad, but if you return and click the X again it will close, gaslighting you into thinking you just misclicked the first time. Another trick that I’ve noticed on the Reddit app is that the tappable area is much larger for ads than normal posts. If you tap even near the ad it will visit the ad
- DrewADesign 10mo ago
  Also making the hit area smaller than the close graphic itself is a popular one.
Groxx 10mo ago
No, I mean there are ads with a "close button" in the corner, and then a few seconds later the real close button will appear and it'll weirdly overlap it. Because the first one was fake, just part of the image asset of the ad. They're very very clearly click-fraud tricks, and most platforms will ban them if they're caught. But by clicking on the ad, it closes the ad, and there's no way to go back and report them, nor incentive for ad-viewers to do so. By design, IMO. The whole industry runs on scams like this, there's no incentive for large platforms to proactively block any of them because they lead to money moving through them, where they can extract their rent. They only move against the most egregious, to keep fraud at the same barely-acceptable level as all the others.
- mbirth 10mo ago
  > The whole industry runs on scams like this Wasn’t there an article here a few days ago about Facebook specialising in hiding such malicious ads from testers and law enforcement to maximise gains?
  - Groxx 10mo ago
    Yep: https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-created-playbook-fend-off-pressure-crack-down-scammers-documents-show-2025-12-31/ https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-created-playbook...
    - mbirth 10mo ago
      And here's the HN discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446838
  - transcriptase 10mo ago
    Yes. Basically the internet version of the Volkswagen emissions scandal. if(testdetected == 1) ecm.lowemissions else lmao.fuckyouregulators
    - red-iron-pine 10mo ago
      the difference is that the average rube and/or average lawmaker have some basic understanding of how cars work. petrol goes in, toxic gas comes out, so make toxic gas less. most of them have 0% understanding as to how data mining works or how online ads (and scams) function
      - immibis 10mo ago
        It was about advertising for scams, not tracking. That's easier to understand than a car.

DrewADesign 10mo ago

As a sometimes designer, i don’t think there’s any distinction between punishing the ad and the company. The company bought the ad, probably directed its creation, and decided what its criteria was for success. 1-star away as far as I’m concerned.

nemomarx 10mo ago
I think they mean they leave a 1 star review on the app that was displaying the ad, who probably didn't directly do any of that. They did work with a bad ad network though so it's a valid enough reason to complain imo.
- DrewADesign 10mo ago
  Yeah, good call, but I honestly have no problem with that 1-star either. They can’t say “well we just opened the garbage conduit and pointed it at your face… we didn’t actually MAKE the garbage.” Those ads are part of their app experience, now. They published it, so they’re ’re responsible for it. If it sucks I give it a sucky rating.
  - Groxx 10mo ago
    Yep. There's no other way to maybe-convince them to get a different ad provider, because they're the ones that chose it (probably because it paid the most).
josephg 10mo ago
I feel the same way about newsletters. “Hey you bought socks that one time! Want more socks??” -> Unsubscribe. “Hey it’s your weekly sock news! What’s new in socks!” -> But I unsubscribed! Haha no, you only unsubscribed from the “product releases” list. Not the “weekly news” list or our 10 other fabulous mailing lists! -> Report all emails from this domain as spam. May god have mercy on your soul, cute socks.
- rkomorn 10mo ago

flexagoon 10mo ago

This is usually against ad network rules, so if you're willing to go out of your way a bit, you can screenshot those ads and report directly to the ad network

kaoD 10mo ago
QA is something an employee should do, not me.
kotaKat 10mo ago
Difficulty is when you don't know what ad network it is, the app hides the ad network they use, and refuse to disclose who it is. You got served an ad from "one of our partners". That's all you'll get to know, and there's no mechanism to even report the app's shitty behavior to Google or Apple (and they don't care when the app becomes too large, either).
Groxx 10mo ago
Which is often not possible because clicking an ad generally closes the ad. And there's no incentive for users to report, by design IMO. They could have a separate ad-reporting UI in every ad-running app (so you can report stuff later), and they could reward valid reports by skipping all ads on their network for a month or something, but doing that would reduce fraud, and that means reducing their profit. So none of them do it. I'd say they probably need an oversight committee with teeth, to strongly punish every single violation (so the networks develop functional defenses), but they'll probably just VW-emissions-fraud their way around it.

thaumasiotes 10mo ago

I'm not sure that is mostly the ad's fault. Hitting a target on a touchscreen is hard to do. This seems like it's the phone's fault first to me. (If you're using a mouse, forget what I said. But I haven't run into an ad where the close button didn't close it... if you were able to click the close button.)

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
wsc981 10mo ago
On iOS I have seen ads with very small close buttons, so clearly intended to cause people to miss-click. Buttons should be 44x44 pixels, it’s recommended in the human interface guidelines [0]. —— [0]: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/buttons https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...