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Comment by vikramkr | Hacker News Reader

Would be nice if the information was not two clicks away but rather front and center, especially for political ads, but a really good step nonetheless

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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..

> ...with the advertisers’ favicon, to increase transparency.

My mom thinks any URL with a padlock next to it is über secure [0][1] and that she can give her bank details without worry.

[0] https://zeltser.com/padlock-and-favicon-confusion-in-browser...

[1] https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200170416-W...

This is why Chrome and Firefox changed it to a grey padlock instead of a green one

https://blog.chromium.org/2018/05/evolving-chromes-security-...

Increased transparency would be having "Advertisement" (no abbreviation) and the advertiser's icon.

Replacing "Ad" with advertiser's icon is simply a method how not to display "Ad". I expect that many icons will not be company logos, but rather something that seems like it would normally appear in a web page: a small arrow, a tiny dot, a thumb-up, etc.

Then the Google will have credible deniability: hey, we didn't make the icon, the advertiser did, blame him. But of course they are the ones who refuses to display "Advertising" clearly.

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