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- CristianRaiber, on 11/14/2008, -40/+150there are a few possible scenarios :
1) Google doesn't give a sh** about it's users, they're in it just for the money...
2) They're paying a high CPC
3) Is there anything else to say ?- jeremyduffy, on 11/14/2008, -17/+10No kidding. If Google were really interested in "Do no evil" they wouldn't store so much personal information about you against your will. 18 months record my ass.
- jakem1, on 11/14/2008, -2/+8Funny how this is such an unpopular opinion here on Digg. Google has become the "cool" face of Big Brother and there are a lot of people out there who are too stupid to see it.
For those of you who don't think this is a big deal, do you really want faceless bureaucrats and corporations knowing everything about you and what you're up to? Even if you don't have something to hide, doesn't this level of surveillance worry you? - kidlinux, on 11/14/2008, -1/+8What faceless bureaucrats and corporations have access to the information I host with Google?
Who's doing all this "surveillance"?
There are medications for paranoia, you know. Maybe look into that.
A couple of points: if Google ever started selling data the consumer backlash would ensure they pay the price for their actions. And if it ever came to the point where the government had unfettered access to the data, you'd have much bigger problems to deal with (like why your government is actually surveilling on such a massive scale.) - grillcover, on 11/14/2008, -1/+4@kidlinux
Thanks. You said most of what I wanted to.
I can limit my comment to, "Take the tinfoil hat off, and back away from the monkey." - jeremyduffy, on 11/14/2008, -2/+4@kidlinux: Who cares if they have done it in the past. What's the prevent them in the future? What's to ensure it doesn't get stolen or leaked? The point is that they have no reason to have the data at all so why store it unless they're planning to do something with it?
- ACloserLurk, on 11/14/2008, -0/+4@ kid Linux and grill cover
They aren't faceless. Congress granted immunity for wiretapping. ACLU had a big campaign about this last summer,
Here's a couple of experts from my email.
6/24/2008 "The House of Representatives caved and overwhelmingly passed a bill that creates loopholes for Bush to engage in unchecked spying on Americans and cuts off lawsuits against telecom companies that broke the law." - ACLU
7/11/2008 "Yesterday, President Bush signed an unconstitutional domestic wiretapping bill and one hour later, ACLU lawyers filed a landmark lawsuit to challenge its constitutionality. " - ACLU - 80hd, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1I actually tried installing this program on a virtual machine with xp sp3 and it won't do a thing. It just fails to install.
Does this rely on old exploits or something?
- jakem1, on 11/14/2008, -2/+8Funny how this is such an unpopular opinion here on Digg. Google has become the "cool" face of Big Brother and there are a lot of people out there who are too stupid to see it.
- benologist, on 11/14/2008, -10/+88Just one last thing..... with ***** only knows how many people advertising on AdWords Google can't be expected to monitor every single site in real time, and with the size of their corporation just because one division knows it's a malware site doesn't mean the rest of the company does let alone has access to that info.
- Sidzilla, on 11/14/2008, -17/+13So your argument is basically that they are too big to use caution in where they accept advertising from? I would say that that could apply to most companies with more than three employees or more than one office. My argument is that they are responsible, and if I get malware from one of their advertisers they should share in some liability. If they are too big to screen ads they should hire enough staff to do it or stay the ***** out of the game.
- benologist, on 11/14/2008, -5/+39I'm saying they're so big they can't possibly screen all of their customers and ads to guard against the tiny minority with bad intentions, so they react when they're reported. Just like the rest of the internet.
A prime example is digg comments. Do you think it's unreasonable that digg has a 'report abuse' option for comments? Are they supposed to be personally screening every single comment posted on this site? - jakem1, on 11/14/2008, -12/+6Opinions and malware are two entirely different things. To follow your argument to it's logical conclusion, Microsoft shouldn't have bothered releasing XP SP2 because they're a large company with a product that's made up of many millions of lines of code and it's therefore unreasonable to expect that it would be secure.
- benologist, on 11/14/2008, -2/+19Not the same at all. XP SP2 was created by a specific group of people in a controlled environment. Whether it's secure or not is irrelevant, the source of it is trusted.
Google's ads can be created by anyone anywhere for any purpose and as long as you can get past their automated checks then you are good to go.
It's exactly the same as relying on users to report abuse on Digg, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia and countless other websites where you have a huge stream of user-created content pouring in. - Sidzilla, on 11/14/2008, -7/+2My point was that as they grow they need to be responsible and dedicate resources to making sure they don't provide malware vendors with a venue to distribute their wares. They are presenting these ads on their pages along with legitimate search results and ads.
- benologist, on 11/14/2008, -2/+12Not disputing that they need to be responsible, just pointing out that they're being responsible in the defacto standard way for sites with user-submitted content.
It extends past the internet too really. The police can't investigate everyone constantly so for the most part they rely on people telling them who's breaking the law. - willski, on 11/14/2008, -1/+7The thing is, their search index is undoubtedly bigger than the number of advertisers they have, yet they manage to police that, don't they?
- benologist, on 11/14/2008, -2/+5Theoretically yes but there's a lot of issues with using that data too:
- that data isn't current or comprehensive and a new bad page, site and advertisement can be created in minutes
- the bad pages are found because there's malicious code/s in the web page itself, in this case the malware is a piece of software you have to actually download and install so the page itself might well register as 'clean' even if the software is not.
On top of which it's entirely likely the ad guys simply don't have access to that data, assuming it's usable for their purposes at all. - Speed, on 11/14/2008, -5/+4I do have to disagree with your assertion that it is a "tiny minority" of links that are malicious. I'd say it's closer to 50/50. Even if the links don't contain malware, they often advertise warez or contain obvious false advertising.
- NicoNicoNico, on 11/15/2008, -1/+4Where do you go? I haven't seen too many malicious sites unless I have purposely looked for them (long story as to why I was looking for malicious links - nothing illegal, I was testing something).
I agree with the people who say that Google is too large to look through all their Google ad posts. Their ads are supposed to be easy to get, that's what makes them so ubiquitous. The flaw with that system is that some bad apples get through. They do let you report those links, which I personally think should be easier to do than it currently is, and those sites do get booted. Their Adsense software scans the code and does fish out those that put things like hidden text or malicious code on their site, but it does not catch everything. Really, that software is a little too good - I had a friend who accidentally changed her background to white, which left some text hidden, and they banned her from using anything Google for a month. The honest people get hurt more in that case, considering that a malicious website is just reposted with slightly different text on a different server. - Sidzilla, on 11/15/2008, -2/+2@Benologist- you said "On top of which it's entirely likely the ad guys simply don't have access to that data, assuming it's usable for their purposes at all. " So, whose fault is that? Google has no reason to keep information on who is purchasing ads from the ad people, or to keep them from utilizing databases of known malware vendors, pages, etc. from their in house personnel. They are making billions of dollars and don't want the added expense of actually looking at what they are serving up to the public. I know it has become standard for the user to have to report bad sites, but that isn't the right way to handle the problem. That is like using the patient to test a new medication after it comes to market instead of having someone in a lab test it before it goes on the market. Google needs to "do no evil" in this case and start looking at who they are accepting ads from. "They get a lot of ads" isn't an excuse, and if they have based their entire business model on that then they need to be put out of business. If someone searching for an anti virus program gets fed an ad by Google leading them to the bogus site and downloads the malware because of that then Google needs to be held partially responsible for the damage done. No, Google might not survive doing business on those grounds, but every industry that provides goods and services to the public has a responsibility to provide an acceptable level of safety in that offering. It's not being the internet police, it's being a responsible business that doesn't offer harmful products to the public.
- dcmjzero, on 11/14/2008, -3/+18How about this reason: THEY ARE PAYING CUSTOMERS. Google is not the internet police, nor should they be. The only ads they should not show are ones that will cause harm to Google's brand or that run afoul of laws.
- UNL1M1T3D, on 11/14/2008, -2/+19I think linking to Malware infected sites is a good way to hurt your brand.
- DarkprinceArmon, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3So we need a internet police? Sounds like a lucrative business.
- remccain, on 11/14/2008, -10/+2@ dcmjzero - Google is not the Internet police. Yes, I like that.
So you have no objection to clicking on an infected link. Opinion noted.
Click this link. http://tinyurl.com/5toov2
Thank you. - dcmjzero, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3@remccain:
Nowhere did I say anything of the sort. What I am saying is that it is not Google's job to inspect all of its customers web pages for content. They could decide to do it to further protect their customers (as reasoned by UNL1M1T3D), but I don't feel they need to go the extra mile.
There are many reasons why Google inspecting customers website would be a bad idea. They would have to make and enforce policies. Is adult content OK? What about bad language? What about regional laws? Could they be held accountable for content that they missed? It is a slippery slop that is probably not worth the trouble.
As a web user, you are responsible for the links you click and the content you download. - Speed, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3No, but they are the Google police. They should be policing what they are pushing out as many people trust that ads supplied by Google have been checked to be safe.
Whether that's fair or not isn't the issue. The fact of the matter is that internet naive users generally trust Google. - Tiak, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2@remccain
Why do you want him to do an ebay search for "malware"?... - scubaman5000, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2I think we should give everyone at 4chan tasers and hire them as the official police of the internet.
Can you imagine the insanity... ok maybe that's a really bad idea.
- peter3118, on 11/14/2008, -1/+6None of the above. The ads that appear on a Google search are NOT decided upon by a human being. They automatically appear after a given search term is used via a proprietary algorithm formula that decides what ads appear--not a human. It is not perfect and sometimes ads appear that have little or nothing to do with what you’re searching for.
- grillcover, on 11/14/2008, -1/+19Furthermore, if you bother to read TFA, you'll note that once it was brought to Google's attention, it was removed from their ad network.
Me? I'm satisfied with that. I hope there are no more than three people at Google trying to figure out how to avoid bad ads-- because honestly, Google has so, so much better to do with its time and money. And if they're willing to jump on noted offenses? That's better customer service than you find in most companies/industries.
So, to answer the submission's question: Wahh wahhhhh wahhhhh - ch40sBr1ng3r, on 11/14/2008, -2/+84. ????
5. Profit - silfiriel, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1they do have some sort of a policy about what's allowed for advertising, but the decision is made by a bot, and the humans can't achieve to enter into the database every malware site soon enough, so something slips.
also, I think that google left it up to adsense publishers to filter out crap sites - dbz253, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2google is one of the greatest companies around. you not giving a ***** about them will make them not give a ***** about you, and vica versa
- sgglynn, on 11/15/2008, -1/+2"Don't be evil" goes out the door once you go public and have investors to answer too.
- jeremyduffy, on 11/14/2008, -17/+10No kidding. If Google were really interested in "Do no evil" they wouldn't store so much personal information about you against your will. 18 months record my ass.
- rickyd1, on 11/14/2008, -10/+58Money Talks
- newman8r, on 11/14/2008, -2/+17only if you're on acid, my friend
- andrewlotta, on 11/14/2008, -3/+4***** Walks
(just not in this case) - migsims, on 11/14/2008, -2/+3Not really they are the most strict advertising platform on the web. There are just tons and tons of advertisers and things will slip through the cracks until either they find out or receive a complaint.
- Zabstract, on 11/15/2008, -1/+2dot com (NSFC)
- hank25w, on 11/14/2008, -18/+7all part of google's evil plan to take over the world
- Nephersir7, on 11/15/2008, -1/+1Apple's Plan is Evil, not Google's
- indyGuy, on 11/14/2008, -16/+114Because google's in it for the money, bitches.
- mooseontheloose, on 11/14/2008, -12/+1so?????????
- moraldebate, on 11/14/2008, -2/+1Also because staffing an operation to root out illegal and misleading business practices among millions of advertisers is kind of a daunting task requiring an ungodly amount of lawyers.
And if they sought out everybody they received a complaint about, then everybody would just complain about their competitors.
- JerichoKS, on 11/14/2008, -9/+39It's all about the benjamins baby!
- j3ff86, on 11/14/2008, -1/+11no, it's all about the pentiums!
- UNL1M1T3D, on 11/14/2008, -0/+11My dad calls them plentiums.
- drunkninja, on 11/14/2008, -0/+10What y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
Workin' at a desk with a dumb little placard?
Yeah, payin' the bills with my mad programming skills
Defraggin' my hard drive for thrills
I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM
I never feed trolls and I don't read spam
Installed a T1 line in my house
Always at my PC, double-clickin' on my mizouse
Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I'm strictly plug-and-play, I ain't afraid of Y2K
I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support
It's all about the Pentiums, what?
You've gotta be the dumbest newbie I've ever seen
You've got white-out all over your screen
You think your Commodore 64 is really neato
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?
You could back up your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette
You're the biggest joke on the Internet
Your database is a disaster
You're waxin' your modem, tryin' to make it go faster
Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar
Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar
And postin' "Me too!" like some brain-dead AOL-er
I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller
- j3ff86, on 11/14/2008, -1/+11no, it's all about the pentiums!
- JEWestbrookJR, on 11/14/2008, -11/+19I've always wondered about this. Google allows ads for malware and some obvious scams. Sometimes illegal ones. Is there just too much for them to want to filter through? Or do they just not care?
- goofygarber, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2Adwords has no moderation or filtering. They get millions of orders... how could they manually review every one?
As an adwords advertiser (legit) my ads start running immediately, so I know they're not being checked by anyone. - fancypantscz, on 11/15/2008, -1/+1they are a search
not a filter - cmorriss, on 11/15/2008, -0/+2I'd bet they're trying to cover their ass against lawsuits. If they start filtering much at all, they start getting sued by people who've been scammed/infected because they didn't filter enough. By not filtering the ad words, they make money and gain plausible deniability.
- goofygarber, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2Adwords has no moderation or filtering. They get millions of orders... how could they manually review every one?
- shauryashaurya, on 11/14/2008, -13/+6and here I trusted Google... I'll go back to being a cynic now... :( all big companies are blod sucking evil, no soul...
- cmorriss, on 11/15/2008, -0/+2Corporations are not evil. They are simply tools for making money. If doing something that makes them more money and is legal can be done, be assured that if one doesn't another will and that company will eventually buy the one that doesn't.
Then again, they do a lot of things that are "good" in the name of making money as well.
Good or bad, there's no better system out there.
- cmorriss, on 11/15/2008, -0/+2Corporations are not evil. They are simply tools for making money. If doing something that makes them more money and is legal can be done, be assured that if one doesn't another will and that company will eventually buy the one that doesn't.
- revjustin2, on 11/14/2008, -4/+19You can't depend on corporations to care about you. You are not their bottom line. Let the buyer (or user in this case) beware.
- MrSarcasm, on 11/14/2008, -2/+4"Whoever said 'buyer beware' was probably bleeding out of his *****" -- George Carlin.
- noxcovenant, on 11/15/2008, -1/+2Sometimes George Carlin makes no sense.
- dasdef, on 11/15/2008, -1/+2thats because hes beyond you
- MrSarcasm, on 11/14/2008, -2/+4"Whoever said 'buyer beware' was probably bleeding out of his *****" -- George Carlin.
- zaffir, on 11/14/2008, -12/+214So they found one malware site advertising on Google, and Google removed it when notified. What the problem is? You expect Google to vet every single one of its advertisers? Where do you draw the line between "scam" and "bad service"? I saw a billboard for Jiffy Lube the other day; if I go there and they totally screw up my car with an "engine flush" can I blame the owner of the billboard?
- AngelaQ, on 11/14/2008, -18/+4So what you're saying is that it's okay for google to take advertising money from and send unsuspecting surfers to a malware site that they know is one, because they've already blocked it from their search results. At least until they get caught.
- GeoNine, on 11/14/2008, -0/+27I see what you're saying, and I agree for the most part, but I think what they are trying to point out in this article is that Google is not using the same "blacklist" for its search index and for its Ads.
- zaffir, on 11/14/2008, -0/+10That is an excellent point.
- bradleyland, on 11/15/2008, -0/+4Add to that the fact that there is a huge difference between providing poor service an consistently and maliciously damaging someone else's property.
- fancypantscz, on 11/15/2008, -3/+1wait
so you think those scam ads would be top ten
I don't think they have the capital to optimize
- built2spill, on 11/14/2008, -1/+6Yes, I do expect them to vet every advertiser, even if that only means that they send a bot to their site to run a quick check.
- strictnein, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2They do run a bot to each site. Actually, they run bots to your site all the time.
- GeoNine, on 11/17/2008, -0/+1Ok, so they send a bot, site is clean. Two hours after, said malware author see that the bot has visited, he uploads the newest version of Antivirus2008. Google checked the site and it was clean, posted the ad and YOU will still get infected.
So the next logical move in your argument (please correct me if i'm wrong), would be that they have to scan every website that advertises on their site every hour, or better yet, in real time. How about they monitor every single file that is uploaded to every site that advertises with them. Ok, if they could pull that off with out going bankrupt, then they would still need a def set with hashes of EVERY single piece of malware ever written (assuming they would use the outdated standard) in order for it to be absolutely effective. Which is physically impossible as long as people are actively writing malicious code.
You obviously don't understand dynamics of what they are dealing with.
- willski, on 11/14/2008, -0/+5I wouldn't expect them to vet the advertisers if they weren't already vetting the search results. Since they're doing the work on the search results, they should do the right thing, and apply that filter list to their advertising wing as well, whether it results in lost revenue or not.
- MLGLies, on 11/14/2008, -2/+9Dugg for "What the Problem is?"
- echelonist, on 11/14/2008, -2/+5YES WE CAN
- yojiffyskippy, on 11/14/2008, -8/+57Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If they did screen the ads, everyone would cry that they're censoring the web. While this may be a clear cut case for screening, there would be millions of others sites hat would be in a gray area.
- jakem1, on 11/14/2008, -1/+6I'd be more than happy to have all the ads on the internet censored away. Isn't that what AdBlock's for?
Maybe I'm getting too old but I can still remember the heady days of the early 90's when people thought that the internet could be a force for good, free of corporate control and advertising. - jmpeagle, on 11/14/2008, -0/+3they do screen ads, of course they recently got sued for it by a pro-life movement and lost
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_ ...- Tiak, on 11/14/2008, -0/+3They didn't lose... They stopped screening and the case was called off without court intervention.
- AndySavage, on 11/14/2008, -0/+3I don't see how there would be any sort of ambiguity in the ethics of screening sites.
It's not censorship to blacklist sites that harbor malware. It's the equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. And as we all know from our high school US History class, the Supreme Court determined that it is NOT free speech.
- jakem1, on 11/14/2008, -1/+6I'd be more than happy to have all the ads on the internet censored away. Isn't that what AdBlock's for?
- LoveLikeRockets, on 11/14/2008, -14/+2again another story of Ads. get off the internet please...
- Chassit, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3A virus writer, ehhh?
Oh, and yes adware programs are viruses.
- Chassit, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3A virus writer, ehhh?
- republicker, on 11/14/2008, -9/+2Google has no heart boo hoo
- ggbs, on 11/14/2008, -9/+2they can't check each and every site, as mentioned
- Kakumeikeahi, on 11/15/2008, -1/+1Yeah, most of the time people give a credit card and some ad material.
I bet you, it could even be fully automated. I don't know though. rofl.
- Kakumeikeahi, on 11/15/2008, -1/+1Yeah, most of the time people give a credit card and some ad material.
- martyFREEDOM, on 11/14/2008, -3/+21I am assuming it because they run thousands of ads, some of them are likely to slip through. Besides, if you flag an ad to them they will get rid of it if they find that it is malicious.
- Denominator88, on 11/14/2008, -2/+25I'm an IT Consultant, and this Smit-Fraud (and varients like AV 2008, 2009, XP etc) spyware/malware, is the most common thing we encounter by far. Every week I clean at least one infection on a computer. I actually just cleaned a laptop from someone who actually BOUGHT the malware. It's not a pretty thing.
- renegadeafk, on 11/14/2008, -0/+8Yeah I've had to clean this off family computers tons of times. And even though they all have up to date a/v they are always stupid enough to get i9nfected somehow.
- Dubbsacc, on 11/14/2008, -1/+1AV won't pick this up, I don't care how good it is. This program mimics a real program well, there is probably no sign of virus what so ever.
What these apps do is essentially the same as the Windows Activation reminder, it just pops up randomly saying "You're infected, blah, blah". Or a trial application that's always nagging you about licensing, only this one pops up with out any intervention. - Denominator88, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2Actually I've had Spybot Search and Destroy pick it up just fine, it even lists the proper name of the infection.
- Dubbsacc, on 11/15/2008, -0/+2I wasn't aware that Spybot Search and Destry was a stand alone AV...OP didn't state whether he was using a malware specific program or not, just AV.
- thegrantman, on 11/15/2008, -0/+2It's not a matter of stupidity.I got the 9000 from a site listed on Digg. The pros who cleaned my comp said that they too had gotten it twice and had no idea where it came from.They did know that the scam is of Russian origin.
- Dubbsacc, on 11/14/2008, -1/+1AV won't pick this up, I don't care how good it is. This program mimics a real program well, there is probably no sign of virus what so ever.
- OsiVert, on 11/15/2008, -1/+6You would think Microsoft would sue them or flex their muscle for using their logos.
- Waterrat, on 11/18/2008, -0/+1 Even though I can't get infected,cause I'm a Linux user,I'm seeing an inc erase in that fake spyware crap as well.
- Waterrat, on 11/18/2008, -0/+1 Even though I can't get infected,cause I'm a Linux user,I'm seeing an inc erase in that fake spyware crap as well.
- renegadeafk, on 11/14/2008, -0/+8Yeah I've had to clean this off family computers tons of times. And even though they all have up to date a/v they are always stupid enough to get i9nfected somehow.
- spenner, on 11/14/2008, -5/+11Because antivirus xp 2008 is the bestest anti virus out there....no wait
- lulzitsadigg, on 11/14/2008, -0/+42009 is much better
- janosm, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1the last one I cleaned allowed you to buy the standard or premium version. I've had a lot of customers actually by the antivirus
- lulzitsadigg, on 11/14/2008, -0/+42009 is much better
- encrypteduser, on 11/14/2008, -6/+4Here's a similar story where the same type of rogue anti-malware programs were served through the ads on download.com
http://malwaredatabase.net/blog/index.php/2008/11/ ... - adarkmethod, on 11/14/2008, -5/+41they remove malicious ads when notified, almost immediately. I challenge anyone to deal with the volume of content they do and do a better job of screening.
don't like google, use a completing service, plenty exist.- jakem1, on 11/14/2008, -1/+6Alternatively, do what I do and don't click on any of Google's ads.
- Tiak, on 11/14/2008, -0/+14Alternatively, do what most of us do, and don't see any of Google's ads.
- Pfkninenines, on 11/14/2008, -1/+5*competing
- jakem1, on 11/14/2008, -1/+6Alternatively, do what I do and don't click on any of Google's ads.
- lut4rp, on 11/14/2008, -9/+4is the googleplex reading this? dugg for attention.
- byte1918, on 11/14/2008, -4/+6Because they CAN!
- BIOHazard87, on 11/15/2008, -1/+1Thats what she said.
- wtfunk, on 11/14/2008, -7/+3maybe it has something to do with their sub $300 stock price - they are now accepting bids from ANYONE. i also notice a dip in revenues from one of my websites despite increased traffic & clicks. BOO
- imthelodis, on 11/14/2008, -7/+3Google does it for the same reason people write these programs..... there is MONEY in it!
- viruss, on 11/14/2008, -7/+1Utterly ridiculous !
This is tantamount to saying that burger/pizza shops shouldn't sell to obese people !
Advertisement is the bottom-line of Google's business model. Plain & simple.
In theory they would serve ads for anyone who pays for it.
Its not google's job to decide whether its real or spam. It is afterall a business, not charity.- jakem1, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2You didn't really think that through did you. IT would be pretty stupid of Google to allow poor decisions on individual ads undermine their entire business model. What's the point of making some short-term money off a couple of dodgy ads if those dodgy ads prevent customers from clicking on your links.
- spydersvenom, on 11/14/2008, -2/+4I don't think there was any specific intended wrongdoing. When Google makes deals, it can often be with networks (I work for a major web site in the ad serving department, we do the same here) and from time to time the inclusion of these types of adds make their way in. When you serve 3rd party ad tags, we can test the initial and subsequent loads, but if you reset your server or change the creative running in the tags, things can change without our knowledge. If it's really only 1 creative out of a potential 20 that is causing the issue, we typically give the company until the end of the day to remove the questionable content, but Digg and the Internet, unlike major business, don't move at that pace; they move much faster.
It doesn't appear that Google intended to do this (ie: a Google rep and the malware site never sat in a room and while tapping their fingers like Monty Burns on the Simpsons agreed to screw over typical internet users in return for money), and besides, I heard they removed it. Prove actual malice before you get people all worked up on Digg.- Tiak, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1I really can't conceive of any reason at all for you to be being dugg down...
- jayasharma, on 11/14/2008, -6/+1for money ofcourse
- GeoNine, on 11/14/2008, -1/+5Yeah, everyone can just say that "its because it they only care about money", blah blah blah, but if you digg a little deeper I have a feeling there is more to it. i'm just saying.... what if both engines (ads and search index) were built totally separately from the start with out taking into account the idea that it would be profitable enough for malware authors to actually pay to advertise in order to push their malware? It might not be that easy to just "fix" it.
I work in the malware research industry, and remember seeing articles on this a couple months ago. I don't think its been going on all that long, I my guess is that google will have it weeded out before to long. - THESUPERDEVIL, on 11/14/2008, -6/+2i all about the money
- davidkeithjones, on 11/14/2008, -6/+20Do no evil, outsource it.
- VipeNess, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3As of now; I do not use google, wait,, ummm must not type in search box for....
- raydeen, on 11/14/2008, -2/+11What does Google care. They're running Linux.
- JonForTheWin, on 11/14/2008, -5/+14I use GNU+Linux, I ***** went there.
- oxkr1320, on 11/14/2008, -0/+16who clicks on google ads anyway
- Lloydinator, on 11/14/2008, -2/+2In my opinion, maximumpc has no right to talk about malware and spyware and using IE6 at the same time.
- conna, on 11/14/2008, -4/+26what are ads? I have blocked them for so long I forgot what the they look like.
- js281, on 11/14/2008, -4/+3way to go freeloader.
/sarcasm? - iChainsaw, on 11/15/2008, -3/+3***** you.
- js281, on 11/14/2008, -4/+3way to go freeloader.
- Quenlin, on 11/14/2008, -2/+20Another reason I use Adblock Plus.
- dupswapdrop, on 11/14/2008, -3/+2That's why I run prioxy or adblock I never get viruses anymore and I don't waste bandwidth and screen resources with dumb ads.
- Tiak, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3Meaning you were stupid enough to get viruses before?...
- dupswapdrop, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2A lot of viruses are in ads, hey you want to buy some penis pills?
- Tiak, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3Meaning you were stupid enough to get viruses before?...
- JackSchittt, on 11/14/2008, -0/+6I know I'm probably a bastard for saying this, but I actually can't complain about stuff like this.
Why? Because it keeps the money rolling in for me.
Every time some idiot gets infected with this garbage, I end up getting paid $50 to clean it out. And I end up doing at least 1-2 of these per week.
I do feel bad, though, for the people who actually ended up forking over the cash for the "pro" version before they realized it's nothing but a scam. - newman8r, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3dugg for malware
- DarkprinceArmon, on 11/14/2008, -1/+4Google only cares about Google. As long as the Malware sites stay with in their clicking rules they get a pass even if their goal is to cripple someone's computer. But let a legit site get busted for click violation one time, and do they get a warning? No they get a premabann from Adsense forever. Google the next "Evil Empire"
- DigitalPioneer, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3Uhh, hello, numskulls? Google is making money. It's what businesses do. When they find out the ad is malicious, they remove it. Meanwhile, they probably have thousands of companies subscribing to advertise with them every day, and they simply don't have the manpower to check every single piece of software those sites may contain.
- cdbeshore, on 11/14/2008, -1/+7My google adwords account was recently hacked. Someone advertising malware took it over and I found out the next day when it tried to charge over $3000 to my credit card ($20 or so max per day before). The campaign they set up was the kind of ads this article talks about. They set it up with a high CPC.
I immediately contacted google and they were very cool about it. I ended up getting a full refund, no questions asked. I had a good password on the site and I'm not dumb enough to fall to a phishing scam, so not sure what happened. Google took care of me and I commend them for it.
So there's at least one answer... - funkyp56, on 11/14/2008, -2/+6Wow, I never thought I would get dugg. awesome feeling!
- acidsurgery, on 11/14/2008, -1/+6You should try sex
- funkyp56, on 11/14/2008, -2/+6I do.....with your mom.........oooo Burn J/K Have a nice day :)
- acidsurgery, on 11/14/2008, -3/+4Touche! Lol Dugg
- acidsurgery, on 11/14/2008, -1/+6You should try sex
- GorgarFanClub, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2Aww crap.. Did anyone else go to the antivirus-world-2009.com link?
- cfelde, on 11/14/2008, -2/+2Yes, but Firefox stopped me.. the odd thing is when I look at the report: http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsin ...
- muzzik, on 11/14/2008, -0/+7Guys I'm pretty sure this is just a mistake. AdWords has policies against these kinds of sites
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/static.py?p ...
Remember its in Google's best interest to make the internet a better place- WebDeveloperSF, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1Actually that link doesn't state anything against these sites. Only hacking sites. This is a fake anti-virus program which is different then what they state in the link.
- meleemaster500, on 11/14/2008, -2/+9Best Google ad EVER!
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad? ...- digitnsm, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2Lose weight and melanin at the same time!
- m4csrgh3yk3v, on 11/16/2008, -0/+1and not all that much weight either.
- WebDeveloperSF, on 11/15/2008, -1/+1Man, that was funny. I'm emailing that to people at work and my friends right now!
- digitnsm, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2Lose weight and melanin at the same time!
- Sixxer, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1Ask Google
- gart117, on 11/14/2008, -3/+5I went there and bought it. I don't see the problem. And what is "malware"? Don't hate because my antivirus is better then yours!
- migsims, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1Man, I advertise on adwords and I can tell any and all of you that of all the online ad platforms adwords is the most restrictive and holds their advertisers to the highest standards, of course until someone submits a complaint they aren't always going to what an advertiser is doing.
- jwalk81980, on 11/14/2008, -2/+5I am so glad someone finally said something about this. This is a huge problem with Google. Whenever new suspicious anti-whatever comes around, I'll use google to find out if it's legitimate. If I search for "XP antivirus", the first ten results will usually say something like "how to remove XP antivirus" or " XP antivirus removal tips". If I look at the sponsored ads however, I'll find that Google is also helping to spread the same malware through advertising. Google will eventually remove the malware advertisement, but it takes months for this to happen.
The author is right, Google needs to investigate who they're taking money from BEFORE they sell them ad space. I think the author should have gone a step further and mentioned that VISA and Mastercard are just as much to blame. If a "company" is purposely deceiving the public with crapware or even worse, viruses in disguise as anti-virus programs (which is what xp antivirus is), they should not be able to use these credit card companies as a way to steal your money even faster.- janosm, on 11/14/2008, -0/+0My customers who have bought antivirus 2008 have had their money refunded by the credit card companies. It wouldn't surprise me if these guys create new companies as fast as they get new servers for this stuff.
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