Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

This is only a problem because ad-serving companies don't vet their customers. Make ad companies legally and financially responsible when they serve malware ads, and the free market will then stop the problem.

The bad actor here is DoubleClick, which is part of Google. Google is famously known for being squishy-soft on advertiser vetting. They had to pay $500,000,000 to the U.S. Department of Justice for knowingly hosting ads for steroids and other drugs. (The FBI caught Google in a sting operation. http://www.wired.com/2013/05/google-pharma-whitaker-sting/ "“I want to be the largest steroids dealer in the US,” Whitaker told the Google rep.")

View on HN

The other problem is what little vetting the ad platforms do is easy to circumvent when they allow advertisers to host their own content. A few years ago the New York Times was serving out malware because they approved an ad and later the advertiser swapped it for an exploit.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/times-site-was-vict...

I love how they spin it to being the victim here.

> This is only a problem because ad-serving companies don't vet their customers. Make ad companies legally and financially responsible when they serve malware ads, and the free market will then stop the problem.

No. Then you will destroy those companies in the US and everyone will use foreign-run companies not so bound.

You think people in the US are going to switch from Google and Facebook to Baidu and Tencent?

Once your policy goes into effect and Google/Facebook either collapse or get out the ad network business entirely?

Yeah. I think that publishers will look abroad for networks who can pay out.

I think the parent comment's point was that site owners will switch to other ad networks if the other networks pay better rates due to the types of content they host that Googlebook won't.

And if that occurs, eventually Google and Facebook will wind up running someone else's ads. Because that will pay better.

I don't mean site owners paying for ads, I mean site owners displaying ads.

I seem to have missed the memo claiming poor old Google/Facebook are entirely reliant on malware ad business to stay barely afloat. Could you please point me to a believable source that says this.

I'm not claiming that, though that's what the MPAA believes.

Really, I think the costs and liabilities of what was proposed would do it all on their own. It would substantially increase costs for advertisers and decrease payouts for publishers. Once an ad network does that, it's going to start bleeding from both ends.

At which point some operation in who-knows-where can do better for everyone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com