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Google Businesses IT Technology

Google To Nix All Tech Support Provider Ads (itnews.com.au) 71

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Google will restrict advertisements placed by third-party technical support providers, in an effort to stem a rising tide of abuse and fraud by scammers who offer to fix non-existent problems on consumers' computers. Report says: The restriction for tech support ads comes after Google collaborated with law enforcement and government agencies to address abuse in the area, the company's director of public policy David Graff wrote. All ads for technical support will be restricted worldwide, even for legitimate providers, Graff said. Google's banned such ads because the company finds it increasingly difficult to tell scammers from legitimate providers, as the fraudulent activity happens away from the company's platform.
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Google To Nix All Tech Support Provider Ads More

Google To Nix All Tech Support Provider Ads

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  • So they're blocking... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Sunday September 02, 2018 @11:47PM (#57244350)
    So they're blocking Windows and Mac support ads while keeping the "run to the cloud" cloud-migration partner ads? Seems like good business sense...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      From the article "The scale of fraudulent advertising on Google is considerable. Last year, Google took down over 3.2 billion ads that violated its policies.". It basically seems like Google were a pack of cunts taking any ad and letting run and then waiting for complaints, billions of them, from the authorities, from the public, from it's own employees.

      Googles view of the ads it shows, the products i recommends via it's for profit advertising platform, show me the money, fuck the ad, if someone complains

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        In 2011, 96% of Google's revenue was derived from its advertising programs. Given how crappy our GCN experience has been I'd be surprised if that balance has changed much, if at all, during the last seven years.

      • DoubleClick finally took over the zoo.

      • And this announcement really only proves one thing, Google is incompetent. They completely fail at vetting ads, so they're actually giving up on a whole segment which will now be handled by other players, and give a whole group of sites a reason not to use Google's network (if those are the kind of ads which make sense next to their content.) It's a bad sign on literally every level; for the users, for the internet as a whole, and for google. How many other advertising opportunities will Google (supposedly

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          From their accountants perspective they have absolutely succeeded in vetting ads. They vet them immediately, well, some time after, they have been paid and put the ads up. Pay first, upload next to keep the coin and then wait for complaints, more profit.

          Newspapers, tv, radio all vetted their ads prior to being paid and obviously well before broadcasting them, well, they used to, until they started sinking to Google's level. When you are paid to broadcast an advertisement, you should be legally liable for t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nnet ( 20306 )
        You haven't seen much television advertising over the last 40 years, have you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Nah, they are just trying to block those tech support scams where they convince the victim that their computer is broken and charge them silly money to "fix" it.

  • About Time (Score:4, Insightful)

    by scdeimos ( 632778 ) on Sunday September 02, 2018 @11:55PM (#57244386)
    Here's hoping they nix the "You need updated 32/64-bit Windows Drivers" messages that keep overlaying YouTube videos, too. I don't even own a Windows computer.

    • Re:About Time (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 03, 2018 @12:05AM (#57244436)

      They also need to block the PDF readers, antivirus, unzip and a bunch of other spyware out there. Google should be held responsible for the ads they serve.....

    • What messages?

      There are really still people visiting webpages without adblockers?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      What I have seeing more and more lately, especially on mobile device, are pop up ads that take over the browser and requires closing of windows. These ads requires no interaction from the user.

      According to information from sites that have been attacked by these ads, which ultimately appear to be faker support ads, i.e. your browser has been infected, they originate from google.

      This happens with google every once in a while. Their greed allows some malicious ad to gert through, they they do a mea cupo

  • Now, if they could just do something about (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Monday September 03, 2018 @12:34AM (#57244528)

    the phone calls from "Mictosoft Tech Support" on my cell phone,

      I don't have anything other than some old Xbox running old versions of XBMC from Microsoft in my house.

    The only entertainment I get is asking them, when they call, if it's Monsoon season yet.

  • Is this how Big Tech solves insoluble problems, by tossing the whole bathtub out the second story window and then when challenged about it asking, "what problem?"

    • Yup. First they came for the crypto people...

    • Google is working on a verification programme for legitimate technical support providers, akin to how it checks local locksmith services and addiction treatment centres for fraud, [Google's director of public policy] Graff said.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by macraig ( 621737 )

        "Verification", as in certification? We already have that! Of course Google can't really monetize the current processes....

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 03, 2018 @01:05AM (#57244620)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Babys and Bathwater (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aldousd666 ( 640240 ) on Monday September 03, 2018 @04:05AM (#57245044) Journal
    I don't know about you, but my grandmother can't fix her own computer to save her own life. She NEEDS a tech support company. Are we really going to let some dipshit apples spoil the whole bunch for a giant swath of the public who NEEDS this kind of shit to even make Excel add the total of a column for them? We shouldn't. We should just tell people what to look for in a scammer. IE someone who calls you first about problems with your computer you didn't know you had. Also, someone claiming to be from 'Windows technical support' or anyone claiming to know shit about your computer, at all, preemptively. Just say no! teach anyone who owns a computer that, and you've instantly made it less profitable to be a scammer, and also potentially created tens of thousands of more hilarious youtube videos of people leading scammers on until they meet their inevitably obnoxious conclusion that you aren't falling for it. Sell Ads on THAT.

    • Re:Babys and Bathwater (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rossz ( 67331 ) <ogre@noSpAM.geekbiker.net> on Monday September 03, 2018 @04:11AM (#57245062) Journal

      The problem is there's only a couple of good apples at the bottom of a barrel filled with rotten ones. And good luck teaching your 80 year old grandmother how to avoid scams. The elderly are targeted because they are easy.

      • They are targeted because they trust people. When they grew up, the default in America was to trust others you don't know. And it was a good policy. We built a great nation on trust.

        Today, anyone who trusts strangers is viewed as a total moron who deserves to be victimized. You can ask anyone who comes from a non-trusting country how much they suck. And yet that's what America is turning into, to tremendous applause.

        • deserves to be victimized

          No they don't. There is right and wrong and will always be. Knowingly exploiting someone's trust, ignorance, and/or other disadvantages is in in the "wrong" column just in case you can't tell. Is it okay for me to take the bike off your porch when I find that you failed to lock it up. Of course, it isn't.

          • Yeah, wait for the next story about Nigerian scams or Russian scams or whatever horror has been unleashed by cheap internet telephony, and you'll hear applause as the Slashdot crowd approves of trusting people being defrauded. It's their fault, see, because they didn't mistrust strangers by default like a smart person does.

    • They want you to buy a Chromebook and give them all your data so they can sell more ads.

      Your options:
        - do just that
        - buy a Mac and AppleCare

      Unfortunately, AppleCare runs out after three years and you've got to buy new hardware.

    • She can still google for someone to fix her computer, there just wonâ(TM)t be ads for it when she searches for stuff. That should be far less confusing for her.

    • Also, someone claiming to be from 'Windows technical support' or anyone claiming to know shit about your computer, at all, preemptively. Just say no!

      By doing that you have wasted your energy (to utter 'no'). Don't pick up the call or pick up and stay silent until you recognize the marketing call and disconnect.

  • If they purport to have AI sufficiently intelligent to drive cars, can't it be use to discern scams? Any time Google (or any company which purports "to almost" have working scalable AI) complains that it can't make a simple decision rapidly and it's the kind of decision that millions of people make every day, it should give them and everyone else a pause.

  • Good for Google - It's a real problem (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Torodung ( 31985 ) on Monday September 03, 2018 @08:21AM (#57245558) Journal

    I had an experience a few months ago where I typed in "Netgear support" and the first hit I got was an ad for some firm that claimed it could fix routers. At the time, it was not clear that it wasn't Netgear support, and they claimed to be Netgear, both in the ad and on the phone. It was only until they asked for $100, for support on a brand new router, that I realized they weren't. I immediately terminated the call.

    They called back, again claiming they were "Netgear" (I had given them a callback number). I was rather upset that Google provided their ad result as the first item for Netgear. They were running a scam. I eventually got to real Netgear support, and they helped me with my problem.

  • not just tech support (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "the company finds it increasingly difficult to tell scammers from legitimate providers"

    A very widespread problem in many areas besides tech support, e.g., banking/financial services.
    Wells Fargo for example. Legitimate business or scammer?

  • Back when I co-owned an IT service business our most prominent calls were residential calls resolving issues created by Google enabling scammers to bilk elderly people out of money who were searching for support for D-Link support, Microsoft support, Apple support, etc., etc.. You name it, there's a fake support site for it.

    Every few months I would feedback Google's scam ads and they never did anything about them. Why? Because Googling has happily and knowingly enabling scam artists.

    We had one senior
  • Great! Now they should also remove ads for all of the other categories experiencing an influx of scammers... which are like... everything under the sun!
    Want a depressing example? Look up "florist scam google maps". They are doing nothing about it.

  • So, tech support providers have become like mechanics. They fix stuff that isn't broken, and break stuff to fix it later.

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