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The better thing would be to hold Google directly accountable for every malicious ad they allow through their network. If they cannot do that, they should not b
by cwnyth 16d ago
The better thing would be to hold Google directly accountable for every malicious ad they allow through their network. If they cannot do that, they should not be in business selling ads then.
Yes, that means amending the law (in the US). But the law as it is written facilitates crime.
- siliconc0w 16d agoAgreed It's not just malicious software ads, they also sell ads to entities mitming every government service.
- bborud 16d agoHow would one hold Google accountable? By fining them $1bn? $10bn? $100bn? To them it is just the cost of doing business. We're beyond holding huge companies accountable. The only way they could be held accountable is if there was personal risk involved for the CEOs. There isn't.
- account42 15d agoDoesn't matter what fine you start with as long as you keep increasing it geometrically with repeated infractions.
- bborud 11d agoFor those who downvoted that comment: grow some nuts and prove me wrong.
- mschuster91 16d ago> How would one hold Google accountable? By fining them $1bn? $10bn? $100bn? To them it is just the cost of doing business. Percentage of global gross revenue like the EU's GDPR does seems to work effectively enough for a scare tactic.
- dylan604 16d agoAt this point, breaking them up into smaller companies. Then start fining the individual companies so the balance sheets feel the fine more. Increase the fines exponentially for each violation.
- cwnyth 16d agoThe other option is jailing those who direct companies to break laws. It works for criminal organizations, why doesn't it work for companies?
- lossyalgo 15d agoIf anyone will be going to jail within a corp, it's usually some low-level scapegoat and rarely the C-suite.
- bborud 16d agoWhat is the likelihood of that happening? Realistically? Does anyone think government can, or even wants to, break up large companies? The large companies _own_ the politicians.
- pibaker 16d ago> There isn't. Not with this attitude.
- bborud 11d agoI’m not American. This is not an attitude. It is an observation. Before you get to thump your chest you owe me homework. You have to prove me wrong.
- none2585 16d agoI hate these comments. What meaningful thing is this person supposed to do? In the US, the government is _owned_ by corporations. To pretend otherwise is naive.
- pibaker 16d agoIf I am the evil corporations owning the state I would love to make all citizens pathetic cynics who think they have no capability for change and therefore bears no responsibility.
- croon 16d agoYou vote out the worst party. Then the remaining party splinters into groups and you vote out the worst half of those two. Rinse, repeat. Are they both bad? Probably. Are the equally bad? Not even remotely.
- mcmcmc 16d agoPut execs in jail for enabling fraud
- tgsovlerkhgsel 16d agoIf a scam ad is found, at the very least, require them to disclose business records to show how much money the scam ad made (revenue, not profit), and make them repay it. Leave it up to the platform whether to recoup the paid-out share from the publisher or not. If they are caught doing it repeatedly without taking adequate measures to stop it, treat them as an accessory to the crime.
- deleted 16d ago[deleted]
- 1718627440 16d agoStart with $1 and double it every time they do it again.
- electriclove 16d agoI mean, maybe we can try going after the scammers.. but we can’t even stop scam callers and junk mail
- account42 15d agoWho is we? Some countries do fairly well with both of these.
- electriclove 14d agoThe US
- mikestew 16d agoYou can stop junk mail for $8: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47619939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47619939 Sorry, no solution for spam calls/texts.
- what 16d agoSadly does not apply to political organizations, which is probably the largest source of spam “mail” (to mention nothing of text/sms spam). The amount of crap stuffed into my mailbox every election season is insane.
- koito17 16d agoIn Japan, the identity verification is quite strict to subscribe to a voice/text capable phone line. Still yet to get robocalls or spam texts. I'm sure they exist, but despite handing out my phone number to city hall and countless private businesses, I have yet to receive one. On the other hand, enabling my Verizon eSIM is a surefire way to receive hourly "Potential Spam" calls, despite giving nobody outside of direct family my US phone number. Thankfully, I've convinced enough of my family to use Signal and we call/text through there instead. Nowadays, I only turn on the Verizon line if I have to receive an SMS one-time code or call my broker. Don't think the U.S. will ever solve this problem; people will just say something about privacy, the country's "too big" to combat spam at scale, etc. It's also too easy to get a phone number anonymously. A frequent phenomenon I've witnessed is that when someone blocks a phone number, the same caller contacts them again from a different number with the same area code.
- cute_boi 16d agoIdk if apple can validate each and every apps before publishing to appstore, why can't google and facebook validate each and every ads?
- sroussey 16d agoBut they don’t. Google and others do vet ads, but when they don’t host them, the ads can change based on who is looking (clean ads for Google! Not for you!). Google didn’t have this issue until they bought DoubleClick (text ads and they hosted). And they had pretty good privacy as they didn’t want to share shit. After DC it all went to hell.
- cwnyth 16d ago> But they don’t. Google and others do vet ads, but when they don’t host them, the ads can change based on who is looking (clean ads for Google! Not for you!). That sounds like a problem that Google should have already solved. Maybe that's why "Don't Be Evil" got the boot.
- anticensor 16d ago> the ads can change based on who is looking (clean ads for Google! Not for you!). How is that even allowed?
- heavenlyblue 15d agoSo they are not hosting the ads? But either way, stuff like hashing content (and only whitelisting hashes which are approved) should solve that.
- mcmcmc 16d agoCause that would cut into their profit margins, and section 230 absolves them of liability
- xp84 16d agoDefine "validate". App Review is really only good at catching things that make Apple uncomfortable for financial reasons, or make their attorneys worried (trademarks, copyright, etc.) The sandboxing is what makes the App Store pretty unsuitable for distributing actual malware (the kind that can do stuff to your device without you knowing).
- envy2 16d agoThis. There should be no intermediary liability protections for any paid or monetised content: as soon as a platform is either charging for placement or paying the creator, they should be treated as a publisher and held responsible.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 16d agoNot just the networks (although preferably also the networks) but also the publishers. If a newspaper took money to advertise blatant, obvious scams, I assume a judge would consider them at least partially responsible for restitution, if not an accessory to the crime. Looking away really hard (and delegating the task of looking away really hard) shouldn't get you out of this. Hold the publisher responsible, they can then hold the platform responsible, thus creating a market for platforms that actually fight scams. Right now, there is limited incentive to fight scams, as the scams still drive revenue. If you take money for it, you should be responsible for it.
- BLKNSLVR 16d agoGiven the colour of the text, I just wanted to say that I agree 100% with this: > If you take money for it, you should be responsible for it. If they don't want to take responsibility then they should guarantee that the responsible party have provided valid credentials that can result in their being held responsible. That would clear up the quagmire that is internet advertising pretty darn quick.
- abustamam 16d agoI am working on a hobby project to help me manage my Toastmasters clubs and Id love to get it into more hands because its genuinely helpful but more hands means more maintenance and opération costs. I asked Claude if I could charge for it and it basically said that as long as its a hobby project Im safe but once I start charging, then the Toastmasters organization could sue me or issue a cease and desist for using their IP to make money without permission, which makes sense. It did advise me to talk to a lawyer which I haven't done, but assuming it's right, then financial incentives causing other parties "harm" (for some definition of the word) are illegal. In other words, I think the law wants what you and OP said to be true, but seems like it doesn't apply once you get big enough. Anecdotally, Amazon and Walmart and other big retailers seem to not be held responsible when they sell goods that dont work as advertised or even actively harm people.
- robhlt 16d agoThis kind of thing has come up before with "murder for hire" advertisements [1]. The publishers were only found liable when the advertisement was very explicit. Seems like the bar is quite high and courts are currently unwilling to impose "undue burden" on publishers. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_of_Fortune_(magazine)#%22Gun_for_Hire%22_lawsuits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_of_Fortune_(magazine)#...
- panarky 16d agoGeneralize this. Every landlord should be directly accountable for all crimes committed by their tenants. Every telco should be directly accountable for all crimes committed by their customers. Meta should pay damages when their users stalk and harass people.
- dpkirchner 16d agoTry generalizing the argument without changing it substantially, then we'll talk.
- shortstuffsushi 16d agoThere are levels to this though. You wouldn't hold a landlord accountable if it was a surprise that a crime took place, but if they were aware that some of their tenants were committing crimes and just "choosing not to ask about it," they could reasonably be called "accountable." Telcos are regularly asked to give up information regarding crimes committed by their customers, see the Patriot Act for details - in some sense, we as a country have decided to hold them accountable for this (though, not spam). Meta have been involved in a whole list of litigation that is at minimum adjacent to stalking/harassment, if not directly involving those things. I would need to look up to be more specific, though.
- panarky 15d agoYou moved the goalposts to make your arguments. You say landlords should only have accountability for the crimes of their tenants if they chose to do nothing to prevent their property from being used for crime. Google doesn't just ignore bad advertisers, they prevent the vast majority of malicious ads and report the worst offenders to law enforcement. Google is already doing far more than what you say immunizes landlords. You say telcos are in the clear because they give info to law enforcement on demand. Google also does this, so according to your goalposts, Google is also in the clear. You say Meta is in the clear because they have been sued for crimes their platform enabled. Google has also been sued and paid billions in damages. The standard I'm asking you to generalize is the one I replied to: "hold Google directly accountable for every malicious ad they allow through their network". If this standard can't generalize to landlords, telcos, Meta and everyone else who has a platform that bad actors abuse, then it's a bogus standard.
- m463 16d agoall of this seems a little like second-level nonsense. it's like ... "when my vacuum cleaner takes pictures of my wife naked, it should use HTTPS when uploading the pictures to the cloud"
- jagged-chisel 16d agoBut … it really should
- 1718627440 16d agoThen you can't intercept it and server a virus instead.
- beloch 16d agoThis is bad enough for Americans, but things are a bit worse for those who aren't. If my government tries to regulate, tax, or otherwise annoy one of these corporations, their billionaire owner will deposit a few million into the right campaign fund and the Big Cheeto will tariff us, threaten to invade us, swear at us, send us ambassadors who swear at us, or start trying to rename bodies of water. (He'll probably do that anyways.) In general, it's bad enough for our business that we usually just let these companies do what they want and hope that, someday, the U.S. will regulate them properly. That's unlikely to happen anytime soon. (Note: Even Democrats get nasty when their campaign funding is threatened.) In the meantime, look out for the people you care about and support anything that pries your data out of American fingers.
- vjvjvjvjghv 16d agoHow do you figure out what is a malicious ad? That seems really difficult at scale.
- account42 15d agoOh well, it they're doing it at scale then I guess we'll let the crime slide.
- wredcoll 16d agoIf you're asking socially, you don't, that's the benefit of writing laws instead of programs. If you're asking technically, well, google made over 400 billion dollars last year, they can spend some of that to figure it out. Or stop serving ads. Just because it's difficult to do safely doesn't mean you get to just do it anyways because there's profit involved.
- avereveard 16d agoYou start with the obvious cases of sending you to a domain that serves malware, sure there will be instance of fraud that will slip trough, but lets not let best be the enemy of good
- Symbiote 16d ago"At scale" sounds like an assumption that costs must decrease as income increases. That's not required. Google could employ proportionality as many people reviewing what they advertise as, say, National Geographic Magazine.
- enoint 16d agoRight. They don’t need to get caught at scale.
- breakingcups 16d agoDo the words "at scale" magically remove all responsibility and reliability?
- 15d ago