Google appears to either not screen ads at all or willingly allows misleading and lying ads and scams to reach its users. They profit off fraud by either laziness and ignorance or malice, by letting "ads" like "Your PDF reader needs an update" through. And they don't act on them when they are reported.
Every single company putting ads up in public is held to a higher standard.
dannyw•31m ago
It’s got to be willing ignorance at this point. Gemini Flash can easily distinguish these blatantly malicious ads from the title and redirect URL alone.
I imagine these malware ads offer very high CPCs, and I imagine Google always gets paid (ie no payment fraud). I wouldn’t be surprised if their associative payment fraud detection and banning system works orders of magnitudes better.
spottedmarley•48m ago
All 5 daily users of Bing search were immediately notified of the exploit.
beloch•33m ago
If you know (or are related to) anyone who is likely to click on scam links like these, do them a favour and install an adblocker on their browser. Upgrade them to a better browser if necessary. Don't just tell them they should do this. Sit down at their computer and do it for them. Ads have become a safety risk and that's not going to change anytime soon.
7373737373•48m ago
Every single company putting ads up in public is held to a higher standard.
dannyw•31m ago
I imagine these malware ads offer very high CPCs, and I imagine Google always gets paid (ie no payment fraud). I wouldn’t be surprised if their associative payment fraud detection and banning system works orders of magnitudes better.