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Comment by mc808 | Hacker News Reader

I just checked and the download page on getpaint.net still has a deceptive "Start Download" AdSense ad. That site came to mind because, a few months ago, I tried to be charitable and disabled ad blocking for a few days. That was the site where I decided enough was enough and started blocking again.

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You're not being charitable disabling your ad blocking. You're just perpetuating a system where egregious invasion of privacy is 'the deal' for using the internet. I understand that some sites might struggle for income without advertising but if they want me to view their ads they had better find some partners who don't stalk me across the web.

I just went there and saw a fake start download button, but it was with the 'AdChoices' network, not AdSense.

EDIT: I guess AdSense is involved with AdChoices somehow. My mistake.

Pretty sure it's an AdSense ad: http://imgur.com/OBy1PFR

The AdChoices icon is used by many ad networks, not just Google's, to indicate that there's per-user targeting happening. [1] But if you click on that "AdChoices" button and you get an AdSense help page.

[1] http://www.youradchoices.com/faq.aspx

When I click the > I get https://support.google.com/adsense .

The link from the ad is to https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net

I don't see how it can't be a Google-sold ad.

I'm not too familiar with AdSense vs. DoubleClick vs. AdChoices, but when I hover the ad it shows a link to DoubleClick, the little triangle icon points to an AdSense support page, and the JavaScript to load the ad comes from googlesyndication.com. From what I understand, that all points to it being an AdSense ad.

I suspect the reason that kind of ad is allowed (despite being deceptive IMHO) is that it's not just a download link. It also indicates that it's an ad for a driver update site (which makes it even shadier to my eye, but probably not violating any policies).

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