1) Google wants the most money, so they don't care to let dodgy ads thru.
2) There are more ads going out then can be reviewed, so they would rather have people report them, then they automatically reject the report until enough people report it, then an actual person may review it.
As to why Google doesn't use AI to review them? Google would rather use the AI in a way that makes them more money, than review ads and if AI decides to take them down then that's less money for Google.
(To be clear: I don't work for Google in any way, these are just my guesses)
> 2) There are more ads going out then can be reviewed
The "more than can be reviewed" might have been a logical conclusion in a purely human based workflow, even if you have the lowest cost per head click workers in like, an external contractor call centre type environment in Bangladesh.
As the author points out, the ordinary consumer class version of publicly available Gemini very accurately classifies the ad as malicious. I really doubt that there are THAT MANY unique new ads being submitted per day that they can't afford the compute to run them through a similar classifier.
I have reported so many of those dodgy, scammy, sexualized ads on YouTube, that YouTube/Google has removed the option to report advertisements from my account.
They don't care as long as they're getting paid and there's no immediate liability for them.
I think section 230 immunity shielding from from any liability is also very motivating. Google was born into a world where companies had 10,000s of support personnel, today there are companies with over a million employees, they could easily human-review every single ad and they probably would if they weren't able to divert that cost into profits without consequence. AI makes it even easier and cheaper but... why bother?
Then there's the profits from scams, Meta is the only one with the stones to admit they like scam ads because they make up 10% of their revenue. I doubt it's a massive coincidence all the other big platforms are overrun with scams they do as little as possible to police.
> There are more ads going out then can be reviewed, so they would rather have people report them, then they automatically reject the report until enough people report it, then an actual person may review it.
If only there was a technology which could automate this... But we all know, AI is only used on users, not customers - and users get the two line perl script "AI" which says "We have reviewed your claim and decided to ignore it".
> (To be clear: I don't work for Google in any way, these are just my guesses)
To be ridiculously pedantic for a second:
If you don't narrowly define "work" in terms of an employment relationship, the number of people who don't in some way do work that benefits Google becomes vanishingly small.
A lot of questions being raised today can be answered by the recently inverted power balance between users/customers and corporations. People have not yet internalized that old assumptions about how corporations fear losing customers are no longer valid. Consumers have become entirely docile and passive. Open hostility to consumers is now a norm. (Obviously regulation is also less powerful and less feared as well.)
I don't think it is fair to pin this on Google - I get the worst ads on X. But something about how the X ad network works means that even when I report the ad, block the ad poster, etc. there is this army of alternate ad accounts that all show the same ad.
I was feeling very guilty last night as I was watching YouTube and getting 30s+ unskippable ad blocks every 10 minutes in some video. And the repetition and low quality were grating on me. I thought: being rich is never having to watch another ad. Why am I letting these ads own spaced repetition slots in my brain that could be filled with knowledge? Instead of learning, my mental energy is being taken up by psychological manipulation to purchase? The relentless repetition of the mind-numbing ad interspersed throughout otherwise educational content.
Being rich is owning the real-estate of my own mind. I sometimes feel like a digital serf in my own head.
Somehow I would never assume that X would act "moral". Google on the other hands even few years back was generally acknowledged as a good actor which was once again corporate charade people would fall for. Including myself.
This is one major reason why blocking ads is now a safety issue. If you have a family member who, for whatever reason, might be fooled by this sort of ad, install an effective adblocker on all their browsers and uninstall/disable browsers that don't support an effective adblocker.
If you are reliant on ad revenue, you should be expressing your displeasure to google right now.
These days almost all Google search results return nothing but links to stuff that you can buy instead of useful information you were looking for. They do this because they think they can get away with it, they're the only game in town.
To me this signals a huge opportunity for other companies to dive into. If a new internet search company appeared that returned actual useful search results and clearly delineated ads (like Google used to) I would switch to it almost immediately.
The only way these companies are ever going to change their game is when people vote with their feet!
My father saw a similar ad and got worried. The ad said you need to update your pdf version immediately. He uninstalled the YouTube because he knew it was irregular and thought his phone was hacked.
Google can reply and confirm whether or not a report did anything?
I’ve never seen that. I report ads on YouTube all the time. I’ve reported ads for illegal drugs, illegal firearms, pornography, and all sorts of various scams. I’ve seen similar advertising to the example in this article, mimicking the phone’s UI. Ive reported them. I’ve never once seen Google reply to any of my reports to confirm what happened. I’ve always wondered, and since I continue to see the ads I just assume my reports go straight into a trash bin.
The illegal firearm ad I saw (more than a year ago, now) I was so shocked that I took screenshots and reported it multiple times. The ad advertised that the weapon was “easy to sneak through security” and “didn’t require an id to purchase” I saw the ad several times across multiple weeks. I reported it every time. I don’t think Google ever did anything about it. If they did, it took them weeks
There is am extremely pervasive trick where bots repost trending comments rewritten in AI very early in videos and boost their bot comments above the original, then if a bot lands a top comment the profile is suddenly switched to porn/scam links with a female model as the profile picture.
It's so common and so clearly reported by many people that I'm left to assume Google likes the engagement the profiles bring and chooses to leave them up.
Man, Google is catching strays from all directions. I recently posted an article about their bot behaviour [0], only to be drowned in other more pressing issues.
To comment on this one: as long as there is no backlash from their real customers (those that buy ads) nothing will change.
I’d love to know how much Google has made from accidental clicks since it started. I used to see my mum make a couple of mistaken clicks here and there on her computer; now on mobile it’s easily 10x worse. Sometimes because she doesn’t realize they’re ads, other times she tries to tap the X and it opens… It’s insane
I have a website with some adsense ads (that pay for the server).
I try blocking the most obvious scams by blocking the announcers but it's basically impossible because the same doggy ones keep coming back with a new name.
Also hard because they're not always in a language you understand.
I don't think I should do all this work instead of the biggest ad company in the world just to earn 5€ per day, but I'm also not aware of any better alternative.
I think the obvious answer is they aren't held to account by regulators. If a few execs were sent to prison for defrauding their users (and investors for taking on so much risk) things would change overnight.
I'm sure if I submitted an app that on the iOS app store that mimicked a system warning that tried to scare people into giving me access, it would not pass the review process.
If instead I decided to embed a WebView and later changed the html to do the same I would likely get booted from the app store (afair Apple's very particular about serving remote content in PWAs, and changing said content, even under benign circumstances).
iOS seems to have less scareware and shady apps than Android anyways.
Ohhh, has anybody used AI to generate delicious statistics about how many ads served by various ad networks will get you hacked / violate the ad networks own policies?
It's more than that. The 10% is the scam ads that "won" the ad auctions. It doesn't include the effect of scam ads bidding up the market and increasing the price of non-scam ad wins.
(Could also argue that the scam ad that won the slot for 10 cents would have gone for 9 cents without the scam and Meta's marginal revenue was only 1 cent... but if every ad is 1 cent more...)
Same problem when you want to buy a home in a place where real estate became a means for money laundering or uninhabited store of value
Google's ad-serving is dumb as a rock. It seems to be based just on things it thinks you may be interested in, even when it should be 100% obvious that they are not things you are going to buy.
They should let people have more control over what ads they do and don't see.
If Google served me ads on stuff I was interested (I'd be happy to tell them) rather than womens clothing, they I might buy it. I'm a guy - show me as many skimpily dressed women as you like, but I have no need for women's clothes! Try it once or a hundred times it you must, but maybe after the millionth non-purchase you'd think they might figure it out and use that screen real-estate to serve an ad for something that my purchase history or what they know about me indicates I might have some interest in!
There is a 3rd option: malicious stupidity / aka wilful ignorance.
Google is a collection of individuals, so it's very likely both sides of Hanlon's razor are true: a little malice from those in control, persisting a state of stupidity for those executing the process.
As others have pointed out, there will be resistance to improving a process that negatively impacts their bottom line. Incentives, dictate long term behaviour of organisations; whereas Hanlon's razor works better at an individual level IME.
Google (Alphabet) is a corporation. Corporations follow the profit motive. Furthermore it's a publicly traded corporation. These follow the interests of their shareholders.
What does killing dodgy ads do for Google's bottom line? It's removing paying customers and driving down competition for (and therefore value of) ad space. What's the cost of dodgy ads to Google? The sites that use Google Ads will continue using Google Ads if they do nothing about the dodgy ads. The sites that don't use Google Ads won't be swayed to use Google Ads if they do remove the dodgy ads. Google is not held liable for serving dodgy ads so there's no direct risk associated with serving them.
Why should Google remove the dodgy ads? "Don't be evil"? That motto exceeded its shelf life before it was first publicly posted.
Hanlon's razor is nice and all but there's a difference between malice and amoral apathy. Corporations would sell shredded orphans as fuel if it made economical sense to do so.
It simply increases shareholder value more than if they we're removed. It will only ends when companies will be made at least partially responsible for damages they help to facilitate. Don't be evil my ass.
I suspect this boils down to a cost/benefit tradeoff.
The cost of strictly enforcing stated rules for ads is felt immediately and fully by Google. It is concrete, measurable, and probably non-insignificant; the benefit is essentially goodwill from the narrow sliver of the web that is verbal about this. That is intangible, difficult to measure, even harder to assign a reasonable dollar value to (meaning the ROI could look negative), and the benefit would accrue to parties other than Google who might not even notice.
Keep up these efforts to name and shame. If Google won’t act on these things because it doesn’t make them money, because they are unregulated, or because they are lazy, they might because it still cuts their credibility and reputation. Especially here on HN where Google is no longer considered such a darling by developers and thinkers.
Google doesn't care because they figured out no one will hold them accountable any more.
The US regulatory authorities DGAF ever since Lina Khan exited the picture and the EU regulatory authorities might have the legal basis to hold Big AdTech accountable, but the EU is at the moment busy trying to fend off BS from the Trump admin, they do not have time and risk appetite (aka Trump retaliating on behalf of Big AdTech) left for scam ads.
1) Google wants the most money, so they don't care to let dodgy ads thru.
2) There are more ads going out then can be reviewed, so they would rather have people report them, then they automatically reject the report until enough people report it, then an actual person may review it.
As to why Google doesn't use AI to review them? Google would rather use the AI in a way that makes them more money, than review ads and if AI decides to take them down then that's less money for Google.
(To be clear: I don't work for Google in any way, these are just my guesses)
The "more than can be reviewed" might have been a logical conclusion in a purely human based workflow, even if you have the lowest cost per head click workers in like, an external contractor call centre type environment in Bangladesh.
As the author points out, the ordinary consumer class version of publicly available Gemini very accurately classifies the ad as malicious. I really doubt that there are THAT MANY unique new ads being submitted per day that they can't afford the compute to run them through a similar classifier.
I have reported so many of those dodgy, scammy, sexualized ads on YouTube, that YouTube/Google has removed the option to report advertisements from my account.
They don't care as long as they're getting paid and there's no immediate liability for them.
Then there's the profits from scams, Meta is the only one with the stones to admit they like scam ads because they make up 10% of their revenue. I doubt it's a massive coincidence all the other big platforms are overrun with scams they do as little as possible to police.
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...
I would say it's just because there's no incentive to do anything unless a huge media storm breaks out or something.
turning a blind eye to this stuff probably makes them good money
If only there was a technology which could automate this... But we all know, AI is only used on users, not customers - and users get the two line perl script "AI" which says "We have reviewed your claim and decided to ignore it".
To be ridiculously pedantic for a second:
If you don't narrowly define "work" in terms of an employment relationship, the number of people who don't in some way do work that benefits Google becomes vanishingly small.
I was feeling very guilty last night as I was watching YouTube and getting 30s+ unskippable ad blocks every 10 minutes in some video. And the repetition and low quality were grating on me. I thought: being rich is never having to watch another ad. Why am I letting these ads own spaced repetition slots in my brain that could be filled with knowledge? Instead of learning, my mental energy is being taken up by psychological manipulation to purchase? The relentless repetition of the mind-numbing ad interspersed throughout otherwise educational content.
Being rich is owning the real-estate of my own mind. I sometimes feel like a digital serf in my own head.
90% of the ads I see on YouTube are obvious scams. Many from untraceable shady overseas organizations.
You can see the data if you report them. It's always some unheard of outfit out of Hong Kong or Brazil. I want to know who is funding this.
You don't need to be Kreskin to figure this one out.
If you are reliant on ad revenue, you should be expressing your displeasure to google right now.
To me this signals a huge opportunity for other companies to dive into. If a new internet search company appeared that returned actual useful search results and clearly delineated ads (like Google used to) I would switch to it almost immediately.
The only way these companies are ever going to change their game is when people vote with their feet!
I’ve never seen that. I report ads on YouTube all the time. I’ve reported ads for illegal drugs, illegal firearms, pornography, and all sorts of various scams. I’ve seen similar advertising to the example in this article, mimicking the phone’s UI. Ive reported them. I’ve never once seen Google reply to any of my reports to confirm what happened. I’ve always wondered, and since I continue to see the ads I just assume my reports go straight into a trash bin.
The illegal firearm ad I saw (more than a year ago, now) I was so shocked that I took screenshots and reported it multiple times. The ad advertised that the weapon was “easy to sneak through security” and “didn’t require an id to purchase” I saw the ad several times across multiple weeks. I reported it every time. I don’t think Google ever did anything about it. If they did, it took them weeks
It's so common and so clearly reported by many people that I'm left to assume Google likes the engagement the profiles bring and chooses to leave them up.
To comment on this one: as long as there is no backlash from their real customers (those that buy ads) nothing will change.
[0] https://blog.miloslavhomer.cz/how-google-sees-your-site/
I try blocking the most obvious scams by blocking the announcers but it's basically impossible because the same doggy ones keep coming back with a new name.
Also hard because they're not always in a language you understand.
I don't think I should do all this work instead of the biggest ad company in the world just to earn 5€ per day, but I'm also not aware of any better alternative.
I'm sure if I submitted an app that on the iOS app store that mimicked a system warning that tried to scare people into giving me access, it would not pass the review process.
If instead I decided to embed a WebView and later changed the html to do the same I would likely get booted from the app store (afair Apple's very particular about serving remote content in PWAs, and changing said content, even under benign circumstances).
iOS seems to have less scareware and shady apps than Android anyways.
(Could also argue that the scam ad that won the slot for 10 cents would have gone for 9 cents without the scam and Meta's marginal revenue was only 1 cent... but if every ad is 1 cent more...)
Same problem when you want to buy a home in a place where real estate became a means for money laundering or uninhabited store of value
They should let people have more control over what ads they do and don't see.
If Google served me ads on stuff I was interested (I'd be happy to tell them) rather than womens clothing, they I might buy it. I'm a guy - show me as many skimpily dressed women as you like, but I have no need for women's clothes! Try it once or a hundred times it you must, but maybe after the millionth non-purchase you'd think they might figure it out and use that screen real-estate to serve an ad for something that my purchase history or what they know about me indicates I might have some interest in!
Dumb as a rock.
There is a 3rd option: malicious stupidity / aka wilful ignorance.
Google is a collection of individuals, so it's very likely both sides of Hanlon's razor are true: a little malice from those in control, persisting a state of stupidity for those executing the process.
As others have pointed out, there will be resistance to improving a process that negatively impacts their bottom line. Incentives, dictate long term behaviour of organisations; whereas Hanlon's razor works better at an individual level IME.
Because you're using an application which presents those ads to you.
Avoid Google/Alphabet application as much as is possible, and you'll see a lot less / none of this kind of ads.
It looks like you're using their YouTube client. Try NewPipe:
https://newpipe.net/
there are no ads with NewPipe.
What does killing dodgy ads do for Google's bottom line? It's removing paying customers and driving down competition for (and therefore value of) ad space. What's the cost of dodgy ads to Google? The sites that use Google Ads will continue using Google Ads if they do nothing about the dodgy ads. The sites that don't use Google Ads won't be swayed to use Google Ads if they do remove the dodgy ads. Google is not held liable for serving dodgy ads so there's no direct risk associated with serving them.
Why should Google remove the dodgy ads? "Don't be evil"? That motto exceeded its shelf life before it was first publicly posted.
Hanlon's razor is nice and all but there's a difference between malice and amoral apathy. Corporations would sell shredded orphans as fuel if it made economical sense to do so.
The cost of strictly enforcing stated rules for ads is felt immediately and fully by Google. It is concrete, measurable, and probably non-insignificant; the benefit is essentially goodwill from the narrow sliver of the web that is verbal about this. That is intangible, difficult to measure, even harder to assign a reasonable dollar value to (meaning the ROI could look negative), and the benefit would accrue to parties other than Google who might not even notice.
:)
They'll act if someone threatens to sue otherwise Google doesn't give a shit as long as they get paid.
The US regulatory authorities DGAF ever since Lina Khan exited the picture and the EU regulatory authorities might have the legal basis to hold Big AdTech accountable, but the EU is at the moment busy trying to fend off BS from the Trump admin, they do not have time and risk appetite (aka Trump retaliating on behalf of Big AdTech) left for scam ads.