Prepare yourself for ads from amorphous organizations with names like The Committee to Re-Establish Democracy or The Project for a New American Freedom. (No idea if these are real, I just made them up.) I suppose it helps to see precisely who is paying for an advertisement, but I don’t think this is actually useful in a real sense.
The only long-term solution is education: foster a sense of skepticism towards all advertising and encourage reading information from a variety of viewpoints. Of course, Google’s entire existence (and having destroyed traditional media’s business model, the media itself) is predicated on ads, so don’t expect anything this lucid soon.
> I suppose it helps to see precisely who is paying for an advertisement, but I don’t think this is actually useful in a real sense.
Think from the perspective of an advertiser. Earlier, an advertiser could pay for any ad anonymously. Now any ad you want to show can be traced back to you. This is a meaningful difference. Even if you as a viewer can't pinpoint the specific person behind an ad, they are not completely anonymous anymore (to Google, to law enforcement that may have a warrant, etc). Of course, this change comes at the cost of a reduction in freedom from the lack of anonymity.
> foster a sense of skepticism towards all advertising
Here, here. I would go further and say that human society needs a universal convention that flags paid speech as such, and gives people a clear protocol to filter any (or all) paid communication.
Education is certainly one part, but we could also shift business models away from advertising. Ads are a cancer on content and attention, and the fact that so much of the economy is centered around them is mind boggling.
But I wouldn't say that this leading to amorphous organizations means it's a failure.
It's giving clear ability to connect content you see with well established government legal frameworks. This can help internet ads follow similar level of scrutiny as traditional ads. Is that framework perfect? Of course not. But it's unified framework, with strong ownership (government), enforcement of best practices (judges), etc.
There's only as much as companies can do. Only small part of those problems is technical. Majority of the issues is much broader legal/free-speech issues, that I personally don't want any private, for profit company, to control. It doesn't mean that I'm excited and confident that governments will do it correctly (for sure they won't), but it's right framework to solve those problems.
Obviously if you are fundamentally against the concept of advertising then no version of AdWords will make you happy but.... isn't this change a good thing? Not perfect, but definitely good.
Sure, but this puts the spotlight back on the countries which allow shady crap.
Take the United Kingdom. Google says Foo Ltd. are the advertiser, who are Foo Ltd? Well the UK legally requires Foo Ltd. to register with Companies House, a government agency, and this registration legally must identify Persons with Significant Control, actual humans who make decisions for Foo Ltd.
But when you look closer you discover that Foo Ltd has a company secretary who lives in a run down area of an ex-industrial city, and who is listed as secretary for 1800 other companies, and its offices are registered as that person's flat. The PSC section is filled out with the name Offshore Holdings Inc. offering the address of a law firm in the British Virgin Islands, even though the law is clear that Persons means very specifically human individuals.
The UK could clean this up, but of course the people hidden behind this sort of thing are actually wealthy and powerful and are doing all they can to ensure nothing changes. Similar things happen in the US, and in several other developed nations you probably think of as law-abiding and straight dealing. Google can't fix any of that, so this is all you get.
There are already shell companies. PACs serve to obfuscate the source of funding. I don't see a reason why there will be more shell companies, if the existing ones can be used in this area.
At least, people maybe able to know the group associated to the ads suspiciously tries to hide their identity. Not perfect, but still an improved situation.
With verification, will Google be culpable the next time one of my users is redirected to a tech support scam from a Google ad?
At least twice a year at my business users are redirected to tech support scams from Google Search ads. Its always a similar story, "I searched for Amazon and clicked the first link".
Verifying the (corporate) identity of the advertisers, doesn't affect their responsibility for content (or lack thereof), but it might mean you could sue the advertiser without first needing to get the information on the advertiser from Google.
Google being culpable for malicious ads will only happen if the US finally removes Section 230 immunity. Until then, they'll keep profiting off criminal activity whilst claiming it's not their fault.
For those interested, Facebook already does something similar, and also has an "Ad Library" [0] where you can monitor ads related to "social issues, elections or politics." It's pretty interesting, worth checking it out.
This has big implications when advertisers get banned due to bad behaviors. Previously a bad actor who gets banned could easily just quickly reopen a new account. If they need to get verified, there are a few steps which increase expenses and turn around time. If they need to create a new shell entity every time they get banned, it adds significantly to amount of time and money required to get their shady advertising out.
This is particularly important right now as the cost of advertising on Google (and in general) is going down right now because of the pandemic.
Interesting. That's what I've been doing with SiteTruth for a decade. Unlike Google, I can't make advertisers give me documents, so I have to dig into public records.
I look forward to seeing what info Google provides to users. The demo is useless. Name and "Location: United States" isn't much. I doubt Google will really provide much info about their advertisers; they're paying customers. Search users are the product.
I'd want to see the actual name and address of the business (as required in CA and the EU), business license info (required in the UK), incorporation state and serial number (required for an EV certificate), and have an option to buy a business credit report from D&B. At various times I've put all of those on SiteTruth.com.
It's become harder to get the data needed. A decade ago, an online-only business with no clear ownership or street address was almost always a scam. Now, it's not uncommon, although the scam percentage is still high. Businesses are also allowed more anonymity now, this being considered "privacy". There are "low-doc" states, such as Nevada. Owners of postal mail boxes used to be public record; now they're anonymous. D&B used to encourage companies to publicize DUNS numbers; now they consider that proprietary. It's a great time to be an online scammer.
This is the plan. Once google have verified the advertisers, they can ‘help users understand the source of the advert’ by replacing the mini Ad icon with the advertisers’ favicon, to increase transparency..
This is interesting timing given the general decline of ad revenue due to the COVID economic slowdown. I'm surprised and impressed that they are making things harder for advertisers when then are probably fighting harder for every ad dollar.
They would rather establish a framework of proof that they control rather than have a more onerous and inflexible one imposed upon them by the EU. When large companies do due diligence to show accountability, it's less likely that a government will try to force them to do it.
It is meaningless, because they accept corporate identities, and it is trivial to create shell corporations with meaningless names, like Americans For Good Stuff And Against Bad Stuff.
There is a conference going on with Ernst & Young right now about identity verification, an Italian publication is posting verification data on the Ethereum blockchain, for each article. It is mostly for the publisher to protect themselves when people ask about whether they were actually the source, doesn't protect people from sharing fake sources or making it look similar with their own "verification" entries on a blockchain.
I'd settle for more transparency around the consumers of the ad. I've heard a few folks wonder aloud if huge percentages of their paid search volume is fraudulent. Transparency on the consumer side is good, but there should be more work to prevent bot traffic from eating ad spend.
edit: I say "had" because I think it has changed forms over its lifetime. I think originally you could simply load up credits and it would cover ads across the web with blank images.
i think this is a great step. also we as a company dont have nothing against that, at least it would be more visible that some of our competition is faking a local presence.
Very bad, anti-privacy, anti-anonymity development.
As governments around the world get increasingly totalitarian and everything gets regulated to death or outright illegal, the timing for Google to ban necessarily anonymous individuals, organizations and businesses couldn't be worse!
[+] [-] keiferski|6 years ago|reply
The only long-term solution is education: foster a sense of skepticism towards all advertising and encourage reading information from a variety of viewpoints. Of course, Google’s entire existence (and having destroyed traditional media’s business model, the media itself) is predicated on ads, so don’t expect anything this lucid soon.
[+] [-] hardikgupta|6 years ago|reply
Think from the perspective of an advertiser. Earlier, an advertiser could pay for any ad anonymously. Now any ad you want to show can be traced back to you. This is a meaningful difference. Even if you as a viewer can't pinpoint the specific person behind an ad, they are not completely anonymous anymore (to Google, to law enforcement that may have a warrant, etc). Of course, this change comes at the cost of a reduction in freedom from the lack of anonymity.
[+] [-] javajosh|6 years ago|reply
Here, here. I would go further and say that human society needs a universal convention that flags paid speech as such, and gives people a clear protocol to filter any (or all) paid communication.
[+] [-] kpmcc|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justapassenger|6 years ago|reply
But I wouldn't say that this leading to amorphous organizations means it's a failure.
It's giving clear ability to connect content you see with well established government legal frameworks. This can help internet ads follow similar level of scrutiny as traditional ads. Is that framework perfect? Of course not. But it's unified framework, with strong ownership (government), enforcement of best practices (judges), etc.
There's only as much as companies can do. Only small part of those problems is technical. Majority of the issues is much broader legal/free-speech issues, that I personally don't want any private, for profit company, to control. It doesn't mean that I'm excited and confident that governments will do it correctly (for sure they won't), but it's right framework to solve those problems.
[+] [-] eli|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] digitalengineer|6 years ago|reply
Call me skeptical, but won't it just lead to shell companies?
[+] [-] tialaramex|6 years ago|reply
Take the United Kingdom. Google says Foo Ltd. are the advertiser, who are Foo Ltd? Well the UK legally requires Foo Ltd. to register with Companies House, a government agency, and this registration legally must identify Persons with Significant Control, actual humans who make decisions for Foo Ltd.
But when you look closer you discover that Foo Ltd has a company secretary who lives in a run down area of an ex-industrial city, and who is listed as secretary for 1800 other companies, and its offices are registered as that person's flat. The PSC section is filled out with the name Offshore Holdings Inc. offering the address of a law firm in the British Virgin Islands, even though the law is clear that Persons means very specifically human individuals.
The UK could clean this up, but of course the people hidden behind this sort of thing are actually wealthy and powerful and are doing all they can to ensure nothing changes. Similar things happen in the US, and in several other developed nations you probably think of as law-abiding and straight dealing. Google can't fix any of that, so this is all you get.
[+] [-] lmkg|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] summerlight|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ignoramous|6 years ago|reply
See: Astroturfing (2019), Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Fmh4RdIwswE
And: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
[+] [-] annoyingnoob|6 years ago|reply
At least twice a year at my business users are redirected to tech support scams from Google Search ads. Its always a similar story, "I searched for Amazon and clicked the first link".
[+] [-] toast0|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bootlooped|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chatmasta|6 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.facebook.com/ads/library
[+] [-] 1f60c|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ogre_codes|6 years ago|reply
This is particularly important right now as the cost of advertising on Google (and in general) is going down right now because of the pandemic.
[+] [-] dmix|6 years ago|reply
The hard part will probably be finding an agent to represent the company. Assuming they validate bans based on company representatives.
[+] [-] Animats|6 years ago|reply
I look forward to seeing what info Google provides to users. The demo is useless. Name and "Location: United States" isn't much. I doubt Google will really provide much info about their advertisers; they're paying customers. Search users are the product.
I'd want to see the actual name and address of the business (as required in CA and the EU), business license info (required in the UK), incorporation state and serial number (required for an EV certificate), and have an option to buy a business credit report from D&B. At various times I've put all of those on SiteTruth.com.
It's become harder to get the data needed. A decade ago, an online-only business with no clear ownership or street address was almost always a scam. Now, it's not uncommon, although the scam percentage is still high. Businesses are also allowed more anonymity now, this being considered "privacy". There are "low-doc" states, such as Nevada. Owners of postal mail boxes used to be public record; now they're anonymous. D&B used to encourage companies to publicize DUNS numbers; now they consider that proprietary. It's a great time to be an online scammer.
[+] [-] vikramkr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stestagg|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drewg123|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javajosh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frandroid|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] not2b|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pm_me_ur_fullzz|6 years ago|reply
Steps!
[+] [-] throwaway595|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://w3c.github.io/did-core/
[2] https://sovrin.org
[+] [-] crsv|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alibaba_x|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zebogen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corporateslave5|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timeimp|6 years ago|reply
Hypothetically, of course!
[+] [-] mankyd|6 years ago|reply
edit: I say "had" because I think it has changed forms over its lifetime. I think originally you could simply load up credits and it would cover ads across the web with blank images.
[+] [-] disiplus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericzawo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cypherpunk-inst|6 years ago|reply
As governments around the world get increasingly totalitarian and everything gets regulated to death or outright illegal, the timing for Google to ban necessarily anonymous individuals, organizations and businesses couldn't be worse!
[+] [-] kvothe_|6 years ago|reply
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