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Ask HN: Does Google have a way to report scam advertisements?

134 points by eisa01 ↗ HN
I got the linked ad [1] show up on a website I visited. It’s a scam for bitcoin trading, which is presented using the same website as our national broadcaster. I tried to report it, but the only option that fit was “inappropriate”

Does Google really have no way to report scams? I am afraid the reviewers will miss it, as inappropriate often refers to sexual decency

This type of scam involving celebrities and fake news articles using national media layouts have been going on for more than a year to my recollection

[1] https://retinasket.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-ZvVl5af6wIVXcq7CB...

69 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 153 ms ] thread
samdung
At this point i'm more worried about the chumbox (taboola shit) scammy ads that appear even on the most reputed media sites.
firebaze
While agreeing, I'm even more worried that the "taboola shit" seems to gain lots of clicks even on reputable sites. Out of curiosity I followed a few of them, and most of the time the linked content is the cheapest "content" look-a-like possible - still a lot of users appear to click.

I wonder if there are any studies regarding shallow content and its apparent appeal.

TheSpiceIsLife
There are entire industries operating around shallow content and it's appeal.

But now you've said it we can patiently wait the thousands of freshly minted PhDs to support the obvious.

sukilot
Are they scammy or just content you aren't interested in?
scarlac
Both. The headlines link to websites filled with fake articles that relink to shopping sites or directly to those websites despite being unrelated to the ad.
philliphaydon
There’s heaps of scam ads on YouTube, or sponsor spots on videos promoting scams but YouTube doesn’t care.

So I doubt even if Google had the ability to report them they would care.

sarajevo
You should be able to do this by right clicking the ad or following options on the ad [triangle with the I character, top right, > why this ad > report this ad) - Anyhow, you can achieve the same by clicking the permalink listed below

https://support.google.com/google-ads/troubleshooter/4578507...

l33tman
I do this all the time in ads in mobile apps but they always re-appear no matter how you report them in the options.

I think the OP complained about fraudulent google search results though - there's no way to report them (been wondering the same myself). Only a "Cached" menu option if you click on the small upside down triangle there.

eisa01
OP here, it was a Google Adsense ad served on a normal web page. I reported it using the chevron-button, but didn't think the 4 options were adequate descriptions

* Seen this ad multiple times * Ad was inappropriate * Not interested in this ad * Ad covered content

It's like they only want to improve their algorithms, not make sure they're not serving law breaking advertisements

sukilot
Law breaking ads are inappropriate.
techdragon
Inappropriate is a maddeningly vague descriptor. I’ve never felt like it’s accurate enough.

Is it inappropriate for the website it’s displayed on, for me as a user, for google ads at all... Is it legally inappropriate, morally inappropriate, ethically inappropriate, or just something I don’t like?

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codeisawesome
This is an incredibly annoying problem on YouTube as well. Made me go out and trial Premium so I guess it’s good for metrics by the wrong reasons.
robjan
I had to do that because of the sheer amount of softcore porn (ads for Chinese livestream services such as MeMe and MoreIn) in the YouTube adverts in my region.
blackcat201
Adsense has one small info button on the top right where you can click and report, however, for Youtube video ads, there's no visible way to report them as well, especially softcore porn. What's worse is that Youtube doesn't care whether the current audience is suitable or not as long as the ads were shown at the intended target ( ie gaming related video )
j4yav
Google was showing softcore porn images and words on kids videos in Dutch recently, and I couldn't figure out any way to send a note about the ads (just say that they weren't relevant to me).
faebi
I recently started to watch a lot of finance and investment videos on youtube and the amount of scam ads I see went up like never before. It‘s just mindblowing how so many different scammers get through this system. There must be tons of people of get cheated like this.
TheSpiceIsLife
Ah!

I recently signed up for US stock trading using my ASX broker, Commonwealth Securities - Commonwealth Bank of Australia's share trading platform.

This explains the sudden increase in robocall scam calls and SMS I've been receiving since then.

Hadn't put that together till now.

qwerty1234599
When there's smoke, there's also fire.. if lots of videos exist it means it must be profitable. Probably flies under the radar because the people getting scammed are clueless.
t0mmyb0y
You or I may see them as 'scam' ads, yet what the people are doing isn't technically illegal, just immoral.
skinkestek
I finally got rid of some crazy annoying ads after I contacted Google on the ad sales side and pointed out they were basically defrauding their advertisers at this point after I'd clicked "not interested" for years, made sure my ad preferences didn't include the topic and was not aware of anything I had done to trigger those ads besides being an adult male.
davchana
How did you contact them? Curious. Is it some kind of way feedback?
terrycody
Google is famous for "non-human support", believe it or not. I never seen people successfully contacted a Googler.
davchana
Yes, exactly, thats why I asked, maybe there is a way. OP said Sales Side, so maybe he is Google's Ad Buying Client?
skinkestek
Contact form linked somewhere from the ad buyer page I think.

In case anyone wonders:

No I never got any feedback, except ads are now borderline relevant and doesn't contain many dating site ads.

FTR: I block a good chunk of the ads and I'm also somewhat ad-blind. The above is my subjective feeling about the relevance of the ads.

jacquesm
What ads? Seriously: use an ad blocker.
amelius
You never disable your ad blocker to see content that refuses to show on user agents with an ad blocker installed?
_-___________-_
No, I haven't come across any content I want to see so much that I'd disable my protection to see it.

When I see one of those scummy "disable your adblocker or we won't show you this content" pages, I usually Google the article title and either find a way to see the exact same content without disabling protection, or find another publication that has posted largely the same content. If that doesn't work, I just move on.

mvanbaak
Try to load the reader view of those pages. Works most of the times. I even set sites like medium and forbes to autoload the reader view :)
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sukilot
That sounds like a terrible idea. Why visit a side that has asked you not to visit?
mkup
Usually I disable Javascript for such websites (using browser addon which allows enabling/disabling Javascipt on per-domain basis). Usually such websites strive for Google indexability, so their content is perfectly viewable without JS. If it isn't, then I just move on.
jacquesm
No, I don't disable it, ever. If a website refuses to show because I have an ad blocker installed that is an extra reason to get out of there, not a reason to remove the ad blocker.
tjpnz
I was getting served ads through DoubleClick a few years back prompting me to install malware - the kind masquerading as a "security advisory" claiming my device was infected. I tried reporting them on multiple occasions and nothing happened (of course). The solution was to stop using Chrome for Android, switch to Firefox and install the uBlock Origin plugin. Haven't had any issues since.
bserge
Try more than a decade. AdSense was filled with scams and botnet software (pay per install, was quite profitable for a few years). Google never cared.

I wonder why they've never been investigated/fined for stuff like this (or have they?). I'm thinking their defense is that the fact that there's scams is a legal issue, so go through the legal system...

ocdtrekkie
It's Section 230. They don't care because they're not liable and they keep the profits either way.
aitchnyu
Nowadays I watch a Youtube video and an ad takes me (I blame fat fingers) to the app's Play Store page.
eisa01
OP here: This has been noticed by Norwegian media for some time, but it is still ongoing

Apparently they have brought it up with Google and Facebook, but I can't see anything happening, and the options to report ads does not deal with issues such as scam.

Where is the social responsibility?

https://www.faktisk.no/notiser/aDw/falsk-nrk-artikkel-om-kri... https://www.nettavisen.no/livsstil/var-staude-og-god-morgen-... https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/GGKqyq/dnb-sjef-norske-kjendise...

remote_phone
If everyone on HN started clicking on every single ad we saw, would that be enough to break Google’s ad algos? At some point if every single ad is clicked on, then things wouldn’t work right? Is that not the proper solution to this problem? I’ve started doing that to hopefully make Google think I’m a fraudulent user. If tens of thousands of people started clicking on every single ad, it seems like that would be enough to wildly set their algos off and force a re-evaluation of what they are doing. Maybe if it was a concerted plan like “click on every ad month until Google fixes themselves” it might have even more impact.
viraptor
The cost for the click would be adjusted and someone would have to adjust the baseline in their report for a while. I don't think much would change otherwise.
jefftk
Sounds like you're describing https://adnauseam.io

Both the behavior of this extension and the behavior that you describe, however, seem pretty easy to deal with in an automated way?

(Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, though I don't know how clickspam is handled)

danielheath
You know what happens to “fraudulent users“? No gmail, no sign in with google, no play store.
perl4ever
I started using the inurl: feature to search for things, and Google started telling me I was a bot like every third search and requiring me to do another captcha.

It was pretty horrifying; while I get that 99.9% of people don't use it, it was like a glimpse of a future where the AIs watch constantly for anyone who can add 2 + 2 without help and then alarms go off.

rasz
Meanwhile there are whole legitimate industries banned from adwords, like repair and data recovery _if_ you arent a huge corporation. "We need to discuss Google's anti-repair advertising discrimination." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBJ2LD-Dao

Btw Youtube has no problem runing those scam bitcoin ads https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i877ci/those_fake_... /

or pr0n blowjob banners for that matter https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i87jfj/vpn_cumshot...

sukilot
I just ran a bunch of example searches that Rossman and iFixit said have no small business ads. I saw a lot of small business ads.

Obviously Google isn't fine with policy breaking ads, but they aren't perfect at catching all of them immediately.

www.reddit.com doesn't workmcon mobile.

Use old.rrddit.com

https://old.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/i87jfj/vpn_cumshot...

phone8675309
The porn banner makes a little more sense when you realize that there is a small but growing number of Internet users that need to use VPNs to bypass nanny state restrictions on access to pornography.

Obviously, they’re against Google's Terms of Service and should be removed, but that’s the market that the VPN company is targeting - people looking for porn on YouTube.

sukilot
There is no hardcore porn on YouTube.
phone8675309
Yes - that’s the point of this ad - targeting the crowd of people that want access to hardcore porn but need a VPN to get it. A significant number of people looking for that view softcore or soft core adjacent porn on YouTube, and this ad (and ads like it) target that crowd.
searchableguy
You might be surprised. Ever since the Indian government's porn ban, lot of folks uploading stuff on YouTube.
notahacker
Facebook also seems to have a particularly bad record for running this type of obvious scam ad. Think the main result of clicking the report button is that Facebook's algorithm now thinks I have an above average interest in fake news articles about fake celebrity endorsements of get rich quick schemes...
senthilnayagam
I get ads on facebook for cheap Bose speakers and software license serial numbers for cheap. there is no way both can be true.

wish there was a central repository to submit these potentially scam posts

Rarok
Not scam ads but I've been having troubles with adsense ads that redirect the webpage I'm seeing to a copy of the website of my ISP asking to update information about my account.

Wasn't able to report it so... If they get the money they don't care to spread scams or malware.

sukilot
How do you know the AdSense ads do that?
enriquto
You should report the scam ad to the website, not to google. The website has chosen to serve this ad on their site (by whatever means) and thus it is their responsibility. If this means that ultimately nobody can use certain rogue ad servers that show scam ads (such as google), so be it.
sukilot
The website gets money from the ads too. Why would they care more than Google?
enriquto
They will care only if the users complain, which is my point. It's probably easier for them to care about a handful of users than for google.
zitterbewegung
I've been flagging them too as scams and they generally get taken down within and hour or two.

I tried to report their actions to their ISP but I think I mistyped the email address or something because it got sent back.

exabrial
No, and they don't care either. For instance, you can type in "car locksmith", and get an ad for $10 unlock in your area. If you click the ad, that offer disappears in the actual prices around $100.
soared
Google/W3C are currently rebuilding much of this ecosystem and you can share your input on github.

Project overview: https://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-privacy/privacy-sandb...

GitHub: https://github.com/w3c/web-advertising/blob/master/README.md

nwellnhof
In-browser ad auctions and in-browser machine learning for ad targeting? Incredible what you can do once you won the browser wars.
soared
Yeah there is a ton of context outside of those links, but I agree. Everything in that github is in the proposal stage, so open an issue!
acheron
Making effort to deal with scams doesn’t scale.
missedthecue
If you scroll to the bottom of the page on a search query, you'll see a link called "feedback" by settings and help. Submit your report there.

I saw an advertisement for counterfeit currency on Google one time. The scammers weren't even trying to hide it or disguise it as collector money or anything. It verbatim said counterfeit money for sale. It linked to some Weebly page selling fake bills at a discount to face value. I took a screenshot and reported it using the feedback form and someone got in touch with me in about 5 hours and they thanked me and said they took it down.