I've been waiting for something like this for ages. Hope there's auto-playing video ads too
This reminds me of a company my best friend’s brother worked for, alladvantage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage
They paid you to put a little ad banner at the bottom of your screen, and paid you like 5 cents an hour that you had the banner up and you were browsing the web.
It tried to watch your browsing to make sure you were actually there, but of course we wrote some script to programmatically visit random web sites. Then they added mouse tracking, so we added mouse movement to our scripts.
The most insidious part was that it was also an MLM… you would also get paid for usage by people you referred, too, and then even by people those people referred, with diminishing returns from each level. So like 1 cent an hour for my referrals and .5 cents an hour for their referral referrals.
We were broke high school kids, so we put so much time and effort into recruiting people and getting them set up with the auto scripts. By the end we were making in the low 3 figure a month. We knew people who were making even more.
Of course, it soon went out of business because of the dotcom bust as well as the ridiculous business model and rampant user fraud, but it was fun while it lasted.
I remember allAdvantage. I remember hitting like $20 or some low figure which was their base payout. For a 12 year old kid that would have been awesome. Lo and behold I got an email saying they had increased their minimum pay out to $50 and I never used it again.
they paid you nothing for the things you taught/did for them :D
but it does sound fun. let's see if all these large coding models and agents are a similar scheme.
What would happen (theoretically) if ublock would be changed to not only hide the ads, but click on each and every one of them. Would that disincentivize ad networks to run ads because the data would be poisoned?
Adnauseam (https://adnauseam.io/) does this
It's also illegal in many jurisdictions (e.g. in the US, viewed as a scheme to defraud advertisers by generating invalid clicks that cause financial harm, by depleting their budgets and push them to spend for fake traffic), but in practice it's way easier to just blacklist that IP / user.
The big networks filter such traffic, the small networks benefit from it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/legal/comments/1pq6kgp/is_it_legal_...
You may also get accidentally get your own website blacklisted or moved to a lower RPM tier, or provoke shadow-ban websites that you like to visit, or... generate more ad revenue for them.
Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face.
Any jurisdiction where this is supposedly illegal, it hasn't been court tested seriously.*
Per your link: "What you're describing is essentially the extension AdNauseam. So far they have not had any legal troubles, but they technically could." That stance or an assertion it's not illegal is consistent throughout the thread, provided you aren't clicking your own ads.
"The industry" thinks you shouldn't be allowed to fast forward your own VCR through an ad either. They can take a flying .. lesson.
* Disclaimer: I don't know if that's true, but it sounds true.
>Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face.
No, the illegal-ness doesn't come from the clicking, it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone. That's also why filling out a credit card application isn't illegal, but filling out the same credit card application with phony details is.
> it comes from the fact you're clicking with the intention of defrauding someone.
You're defrauding nobody. People purchase visibility and clicks when they purchase advertising. not conversions or sales.
>People purchase visibility and clicks when they purchase advertising. not conversions or sales.
Again, you're ignoring intent in all of this. It's not illegal to default on a loan, or even to refuse to pay it back (eg. bankruptcy), but it is illegal to take out a loan with the specific intent to not pay it back (eg. if you know you're planning on declare bankruptcy right afterwards).
The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet.
You’re not defrauding anyone if you have your extension click all ads in the background and make a personalized list for you that you can choose to review.
The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.
>The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet.
How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever?
>The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.
You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference.
>How's this any different than going around and filling out fake credit applications to stop "uninvited data collection" by banks/credit bureaus or whatever?
It's so different that it can't even be compared. There's nothing similar there.
>>The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.
> You're still harming the business, so my guess would be something like tortious interference.
No, you're not harming the business. You're simply not following the business idea of the "business". Anyone can have a business idea of some type. Not a single person on earth has any obligation to fulfill that business idea. But somehow some people believe the opposite.
In a credit application there is a signature and binding contract. If I fill in false information knowingly, the intent is clear and written.
If you send me an unsolicited mailer with a microchip that tracks my eyes and face as I read it, you’ve already pushed too far. To then claim my using a robot to read it for me is fraud ignores the invasion of privacy you’ve already instituted without my express consent (digital ads are this).
It’s not fraud if it’s self-defense from corporate overreach.
>In a credit application there is a signature and binding contract. If I fill in false information knowingly, the intent is clear and written.
At best that gets you off the hook of fraud charges, but not tort claims, which are civil, and don't require intent.
>It’s not fraud if it’s self-defense from corporate overreach.
There's no concept of "self-defense" when it comes to fraud, or torts.
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Even one of the users here above mentions the malicious intent:
> I hate advertisers so I'm gonna get back at them by making them pay more.
What if someone unironically wants to automatically click all the ads to support the websites they visit
You'd be doing way more harm than good. The battle between ad networks and unscrupulous website owners using bots to fake ad clicks has been going on forever.
Ads pay in different forms. Some pay per click (PPC), some pay per thousand impressions (CPM).
Clicking with the intention of helping doesn't help. Only clicking with genuine interest helps.
I don't think the question was about whether this would actually help the advertisers. (I suspect it was rhetorical.) Of course the defense will now be harder to execute for anyone who reads this thread.
Some sort of Robinhood of advertising, taking from the big, to give to the small
Telling me this is illegal has made me want to download it more. “IT IS ILLEGAL TO ATTACK THIS NONCONSENSUAL SPAM SIR”
Some years ago I was by chance listening to a radio program about advertising. They interviewed a marketing guy and he insisted that it was illegal for you to visit the bathroom or the kitchen while the ad was running (on TV or on the radio). Completely nuts.
That reminds me of the time I was flipping through TV channels and stopped in on TBN to see what color Jan's hair was going to be. Instead, I found Paul preaching about how anyone watching his programming and NOT sending him donations was stealing from him.
>Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face.
To be fair, you put it in your own face, by visiting the site...
I mean, (not to you, as we go in the same direction, in general), just block it.
The goal of Adnauseam was to hurt Google, and other big adnetworks, from what I understand.
By blocking:
-> Advertiser is not harmed
-> For the adnetwork: No ad revenue
-> Publisher is not harmed
-> Pages load faster
==
With fake clicks:
-> Advertiser is harmed
-> Publisher is harmed
-> Adnetwork is okayish with the situation (to a certain point)
--> Google is accidentally earning more revenue (at least temporarily, until you get shadow-banned), your computer / page loads slows down and you enter a legally gray area.
(+ the side-note below: clicking on every ads leak your browsing history because in the URL there is a unique tracking ID that connects to the page you are viewing)
"-> Publisher is not harmed"
How? Publishers do need revenue and this can deprive them of this income.
Fair enough. I took the principle that revenue = 0 if no conversion, but in reality this is not true at all.
Whats the case in EU? Any idea?
You're not clicking the button, you're sending a known fraudulent request saying the ad was clicked, when the ad was not clicked
I still wonder about that. I don't have a contract with the advertiser to provide genuine data back about what ads I've clicked and what I haven't. The website operator does have such a contract and so cannot hire a bot farm to spam click the ads.
If it's something that's been held up in court already then of course I have to accept it, but I can't say the reason seems immediately intuitive.
>I don't have a contract with the advertiser to provide genuine data back about what ads I've clicked and what I haven't.
Charges of fraud doesn't require a contract to be in place. That's the whole point of criminal law, it's so that you don't need to add a "don't screw me over" clause to every interaction you make.
How is that a fraud, when I don't get any money from the scheme?
Gaining something isn't required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud#Civil_fraud
There's a very general law that says something about using a computer to cause money to move
Wrong. There is no law saying you cannot click every link on a website within your browser. It would not only be impossible to prove but also entirely wrong interpretation of existing laws.
Now if you had an AdWords account and ran a botnet that visited your property and clicked ads, that’s fraud.
>It would not only be impossible to prove
I mean if you had an extension that did it I don't see why it would be impossible. And with an extension for that purpose it shows intent.
Back up a bit. AdNauseam and similar tools are not illegal. The only real avenues would be violation of ToS, fraud, computer abuse or similar. For an individual running this on their home PC for their own use it would be a real challenge for anyone of any size to prove harm.
Now like I already said, if you are running a botnet clicking on your ads that is entirely a different story.
So tell us what does having the extension installed prove?
click fraud consists of the person who runs a website themselves clicking, running bots to click, paying someone else to click, etc ads on their own website. it becomes fraud first because they have contractually agreed not to do that, and second because they are materially benefiting from it. an unaligned third party clicking (etc) on ads has neither of those conditions being true, and hence isn't fraud or otherwise illegal.
Doubtful.
If you intentionally loop-download large files or fake requests on websites that you don't like, in order to create big CDN charges for them, then what ?
Without reaching the threshold of Denial of Service, just sneakily growing it.
Nobody benefits, except for the weird idea of the pleasure of harming people, still illegal.
You are just wrong on many levels and keep repeating the same mistruths.
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Doubtful
Not doubtful at all. He literally laid out the definition of click fraud for you.
As someone who ran ads on web sites as far back as 1995, that has been the term the industry has used forever.
Replying with a dismissive "doubtful" demonstrates that you don't know what you're talking about.
It's also illegal in many jurisdictions (e.g. in the US
Never in the history of HN has a [citation] been so [needed].
And from an actual lawyer, not just some rando cosplaying M&A in his mom's basement.
A "scheme to defraud advertisers", how infuriating.
Advertisers are stealing my time and attention. Why is this not illegal also then?
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You're all over this thread spreading misinformation. AdNauseam has been around since 2014. It is specifically banned in the Chrome store so Google knows of it's existence. If you check the wikipedia page you'll see that they have landed in the press and taken multiple actions against the extension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdNauseam
Usually when it's brought up people say it doesn't work or try to spread fear that it is illegal. Google banning them but taking no action otherwise indicates to me and the thousands who use it that it is in fact effective and Google has no other recourse other than their control over the most popular browser.
A plugin that does pre-fetch is illegal?
Seriously? What laws catch it out?
You deliberate harm and financial damage using a computer bot. Almost all countries have provisions where you can be sued for any type of damage you cause and be asked to repair it (a minima at the civil level).
Big ones detect it, so they don't care to sue. Small ones benefit, so they don't sue.
This is your main protection, there is nothing to squeeze from a single guy. Even if you get him to pay you back the fraud, then what ? It costs more in legal fees.
Still, it's such an odd concept to self-inflict yourself such; it's way better to just block the ads than to be tagged as a bot and get Recaptcha-ed or Turnstiled more frequently.
How did I cause financial damage? I didn't charge anybody anything. I didn't pay anybody anything. I agreed to no terms and conditions
With your logic this is legal:
> One public Firebase file. One day. $98,000. How it happened and how it could happen to you.
https://www.reddit.com/r/googlecloud/comments/1kg9icb/one_pu...
"It's just a script that makes a loop, I didn't charge anybody anything, I didn't pay anybody anything. I agreed to no terms and conditions".
It's a very harmful practice to intentionally try to hurt companies, when you can just block what you don't like.
> It's a very harmful practice to intentionally try to hurt companies, when you can just block what you don't like.
I say tit for tat. They're intentionally trying to harm me, spying on me, maybe infecting my computer, mining crypto with my CPU, or wasting my network bandwidth. They could just not do that and there wouldn't be any concern about reciprocity
Okay but hurting consumers by tracking everything they do is totally okay?
Companies aren’t people. Fuck companies.
This is not ok I totally agree with you, but still, I would rather just block the ads, and not buy their products or support them.
There is a side-effect in terms of privacy: you send a fake click request every single time, you also actually disclose to adnetworks which page you are visiting and incidentally your whole browsing history (not through referrers, but because click URLs have a unique click IDs to match).
I've never understood the use-case of Adnauseam. This just, essentially, allows the adbroker (e.g. Google) to get more money from the business putting up the ad. Unless every single person uses it, it's not going to stop business from advertising, it just makes the likes of Google get more revenue.
If that's the case, it makes it all the more curious as to why Google banned the extension[0] on Chrome.
>> This just, essentially, allows the adbroker (e.g. Google) to get more money from the business putting up the ad.
It lowers the effectiveness of internet advertising. When advertisers feel they're paying too much for the business the ads generate, they'll stop advertising in that way. That's probably the thinking anyway. A less generous stance would be: I hate advertisers so I'm gonna get back at them by making them pay more.
Assuming it actually works (which I'm not sure about), it increases the cost on the business putting up the ad (presumably targeting you). It acts as a small punishment to the business buying the ads I guess.
>Assuming it actually works (which I'm not sure about),
Which it probably doesn't, given that it uses XHRs to "click" on ads, which is super detectable, and given the proliferation of ad fraud I'd assume all networks already filter out.
The other assumption here is that ad networks want to filter out all clicks but the most legitimate.
I don't think that's a very lucid assessment of how advertisers operate on the Internet. We all agree that they could take these steps. If AdNauseam doesn't look like outright fraud in the logs (which they don't if it's all distinct IPs and browsers), I don't think they want to cut it out from their revenue and viewer analytics.
>If AdNauseam doesn't look like outright fraud in the logs (which they don't if it's all distinct IPs and browsers)
You think ad networks don't have logs more sophisticated than default nginx/apache logs? XHRs are trivially detectable by headers alone.
Google wouldn't have gone out of their way to block it on Chrome if it didn't work.
It also pollutes the data collection on you by advertisers. If you're seemingly interested in EVERYTHING they have no clue about you.
When the advertiser is paying a bunch of money to Google for ad impressions but not getting increased sales, what will they do?
Raise the price of their product you might have been interested to cover the marketing losses ?
If they could raise the price they already would have
it's actually the opposite, google adsense and every major ad-network will ban you or put a hold on your account if they think the ad impressions or clicks are automated, so this is a good way to get someone blocked from the ad-network
I view it in the same vein as the thing where people waste scammers' time by pretending to be falling for it and being slow/unhelpful
You would probably just start seeing worse and worse ads [0]. Legitimate ad accounts would stop bidding on your profile so you'd be left with only scam ads.
[0] https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-intern...
This is also why when people turn off their adblock they only get ads for crypto scams and malware downloads, reinforcing the notion that even "clean" websites are infested with scams and viruses.
Scams and malware are unacceptable. It doesn't matter if it's all the ads or only some of them. No justification there.
Wasting scammers money seems like it's targeting itself in the right direction.
i used adnauseam a while ago. it clicked on about 1.5 million ads in half a year of usage.
Not sure i can give good reasoning for this, but it felt like doing the right thing. :)
Assuming those numbers are accurate that’s over 8,200 ads per day, every day. Absolutely staggering.
That exists, it's called Ad Nauseum
clicking each ad would have no entropy. Clicking some on the other hand…
Can I buy a subscription to get rid of the ads?
Back in the day, a funny extension was the one that put a Jimmy Wales donation banner on every page https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/11/25/jimmy_wales_chr...
This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. I love it.
Those ads look better than the modern adware business. Simple. CSS graphics. Text.
Unfortunately the ads are fake
It'd be cool if we could add a feature that places an ad inside the ad. Sort of like Ad-ception.
{
headline: "We Value Your Privacy",
body: "That's why we collect it so carefully. Accept the cookies.",
style: "darkpattern",
},
I was kind of hoping this would let me have ads that I get paid for.
Seems like every website ever is using this by default already
Is there planned support for popups ?
Ok, so I don’t have an NFL team. I played in high school and like the sport, but find it difficult to be loyal to a color and a logo. I also never watch ads at home on any platform.
So. Am I the only one who kind of likes watching the commercials more than the game when my family or friends make me watch football? They are entertaining when you only see them every now and then.
Now, banner ads are not in the same category. But above is a real use-case for enjoyment of ads.
They get old fast. A few really iconic adverts I could imagine watching once per decade indefinitely, but for most the first time is enough, and where an agency made several similar ads I probably don't need to see all of them even once. Here's an example of an iconic ad I grew up with that I could imagine wanting to see again some day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPFrTBppRfw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accrington_Stanley_F.C. -- for US readers, the UK has a "football pyramid" in which there's a hierarchy, the elite sport teams you've probably heard of compete in a national league, but every year the worst of those teams can be replaced by the best of those from the league below, and this repeats in layers like a pyramid, until eventually you're talking about friends or co-workers, who play other similar teams in their local area maybe in some public park for the love of the game. Accrington Stanley is in the middle of that pyramid, it's hiring professional players and has a dedicated ground to play football, but we're not talking superstar lifestyles or billion dollar stadiums.
The only thing I agree with the current US president about is that American Football should be called something else.
- Helmetball
- Gridiron
- Scrimmage
- Brain-B-Gone
- Turnover (if you are Bo Nix)
- Fumblederp
- Kicks and Giggles
I misread the title as “AdaBoost” and got excited for some old school ML discussions on HN. My disappointment is immeasurable.
I had the exact same reaction!
Just use Google Chrome.
need that rental gravity