20 ms·

It'll be a marginal effect, but fake clicks impacts the ad buyer, which then impacts their financials and pricing. The only winner here is the scammers running

It'll be a marginal effect, but fake clicks impacts the ad buyer, which then impacts their financials and pricing. The only winner here is the scammers running the fake affiliate sites on which these sticks are "clicking". Or, am I missing some facet of this enterprise?

ssl-3 2mo ago
Another winner is the person who gets to watch cheap digital TV, without putting together a usable antenna and limiting their reception to the broadcast channels that are nearby. I mean: They just pay the money, plug the thing in, push some buttons, and: TV happens. Right?
- snickerbockers 2mo ago
  Theres the question of whether or not the fraudulent advertisement clicking is using enough traffic to inconvenience or impose fees upon the user but otherwise I agree with you and am tempted to buy one just to fuck with advertisers. Backdoors and spying are also a problem in theory except at this point you can't even trust "legitimate" companies on that front so it's a moot point.
  - acdha 2mo ago
    > otherwise I agree with you and am tempted to buy one just to fuck with advertisers. How that actually works in practice is that your favorite sites make less money and your IP gets a bad reputation so you CAPTCHAs or outright blocked. There’s no “sticking it to the man” here, just contributing to the frictional grind making the internet worse for ordinary people.
    - DennisP 2mo ago
      They make less money, but they also notice lower conversion rates on ads, which might make them rethink their strategy. (IP reputation keeps me from doing it though.)
    - snickerbockers 2mo ago
      You are drastically over-estimating how much fondness I have had for the web ever since social media companies and search providers colluded to drive everybody into their walled-off fiefdoms.
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      My IP changes more than once a day. If Google captchas my whole ISP, good for them, hopefully it drives people away from Google.
    - elzbardico 2mo ago
      Frankly, I pay for most of the things I care about in the internet nowadays. Substack, Medium, newspapers, youtube premium, manning books, safari books. TV streaming. The ad supported web is, with very few exceptions, useless.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- cryzinger 2mo ago
  You really don't want fraudulent clicks ("invalid traffic", per industry lingo) coming from your home network, because any publishers (apps and websites, per normal-people lingo) who use tools designed to block invalid traffic might start flagging legitimate traffic from your network.
  - frollogaston 2mo ago
    Can confirm. I used to use Ad Nauseam (Firefox extension that clicks all ads), eventually stopped when I was getting captcha'd left and right. Also, visitors on my wifi started getting strange ads. Yes I threw off the algo, but I'm a guy with wife, I'd rather get car ads than like divorce lawyers + gay dating sites.
    - picofarad 2mo ago
      I use ad nauseam and pihole and I get nonesuch.
frollogaston 2mo ago
What this misses is the person buying the TV stick doesn't care about the impact on the ad market. The bigger problem is residential proxying, because their IP will end up getting used for something bad.
- hnav 2mo ago
  most residential proxying these days is used by the purveyors of AI
- inigyou 2mo ago
  And what does that cause? More captchas?
  - snickerbockers 2mo ago
    Probably, but in the worst-case scenario you could unwittingly become an accessory to a felony if the proxy is used to access CSAM. Especially if the proxy ends up caching files.
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      Has that ever happened? Is Mullvad an accessory to downloading CSAM if someone does that?
      - snickerbockers 2mo ago
        There have been cases of tor exit node operators being investigated for CSAM. Im not aware of any charges but that's the sort of thing where being in the vicinity of the investigation can be almost as bad.
snickerbockers 2mo ago
If all they did was shove banner ads for boner-pills in my face like they used to 25 years ago I wouldn't mind and I might even turn off adblock. The problem is that modern advertisements on the internet are spyware at best and a malware vector at worst. It's arguably fraudulent to even refer to it as "advertising" at this point, clearly that's just a cover to give them an excuse to sell data to silicon valley corporations that are unironically named after fictional devices used by sci-fi/fantasy villains to manipulate people.
elzbardico 2mo ago
They can stop paying for obtrusive ads where either they make everyone's life worse or get defrauded, save money using only ethical advertising and use this saved money to improve the quality of their products or pay their workers a little better.

ssl-3 2mo ago

Another winner is the person who gets to watch cheap digital TV, without putting together a usable antenna and limiting their reception to the broadcast channels that are nearby. I mean: They just pay the money, plug the thing in, push some buttons, and: TV happens. Right?

snickerbockers 2mo ago
Theres the question of whether or not the fraudulent advertisement clicking is using enough traffic to inconvenience or impose fees upon the user but otherwise I agree with you and am tempted to buy one just to fuck with advertisers. Backdoors and spying are also a problem in theory except at this point you can't even trust "legitimate" companies on that front so it's a moot point.
- acdha 2mo ago
  > otherwise I agree with you and am tempted to buy one just to fuck with advertisers. How that actually works in practice is that your favorite sites make less money and your IP gets a bad reputation so you CAPTCHAs or outright blocked. There’s no “sticking it to the man” here, just contributing to the frictional grind making the internet worse for ordinary people.
  - DennisP 2mo ago
    They make less money, but they also notice lower conversion rates on ads, which might make them rethink their strategy. (IP reputation keeps me from doing it though.)
  - snickerbockers 2mo ago
    You are drastically over-estimating how much fondness I have had for the web ever since social media companies and search providers colluded to drive everybody into their walled-off fiefdoms.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    My IP changes more than once a day. If Google captchas my whole ISP, good for them, hopefully it drives people away from Google.
  - elzbardico 2mo ago
    Frankly, I pay for most of the things I care about in the internet nowadays. Substack, Medium, newspapers, youtube premium, manning books, safari books. TV streaming. The ad supported web is, with very few exceptions, useless.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
cryzinger 2mo ago
You really don't want fraudulent clicks ("invalid traffic", per industry lingo) coming from your home network, because any publishers (apps and websites, per normal-people lingo) who use tools designed to block invalid traffic might start flagging legitimate traffic from your network.
- frollogaston 2mo ago
  Can confirm. I used to use Ad Nauseam (Firefox extension that clicks all ads), eventually stopped when I was getting captcha'd left and right. Also, visitors on my wifi started getting strange ads. Yes I threw off the algo, but I'm a guy with wife, I'd rather get car ads than like divorce lawyers + gay dating sites.
  - picofarad 2mo ago
    I use ad nauseam and pihole and I get nonesuch.

frollogaston 2mo ago

What this misses is the person buying the TV stick doesn't care about the impact on the ad market. The bigger problem is residential proxying, because their IP will end up getting used for something bad.

hnav 2mo ago
most residential proxying these days is used by the purveyors of AI
inigyou 2mo ago
And what does that cause? More captchas?
- snickerbockers 2mo ago
  Probably, but in the worst-case scenario you could unwittingly become an accessory to a felony if the proxy is used to access CSAM. Especially if the proxy ends up caching files.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Has that ever happened? Is Mullvad an accessory to downloading CSAM if someone does that?
    - snickerbockers 2mo ago
      There have been cases of tor exit node operators being investigated for CSAM. Im not aware of any charges but that's the sort of thing where being in the vicinity of the investigation can be almost as bad.

snickerbockers 2mo ago

If all they did was shove banner ads for boner-pills in my face like they used to 25 years ago I wouldn't mind and I might even turn off adblock. The problem is that modern advertisements on the internet are spyware at best and a malware vector at worst. It's arguably fraudulent to even refer to it as "advertising" at this point, clearly that's just a cover to give them an excuse to sell data to silicon valley corporations that are unironically named after fictional devices used by sci-fi/fantasy villains to manipulate people.

elzbardico 2mo ago

They can stop paying for obtrusive ads where either they make everyone's life worse or get defrauded, save money using only ethical advertising and use this saved money to improve the quality of their products or pay their workers a little better.