Does Google have a way to report scam advertisements?
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...
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.
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...
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.
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.
At this point i'm more worried about the chumbox (taboola shit) scammy ads that appear even on the most reputed media sites.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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
Making effort to deal with scams doesn’t scale.
What ads? Seriously: use an ad blocker.
Google cares less than zero about its paying customers [0], mind you if it cares about you reporting some kind of scam.
end users are notoriously not a concern for google, sorry.
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[0]: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165445
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.