Google to push new ads on its apps | Hacker News Reader

Google to push new ads on its apps

reuters.com

125 pointsjmsflknr146 comments

> In Maps, ads will now appear [...] during navigation.

Unless I'm missing something, distractions whilst navigating (and thus possibly driving) seems like it could be dangerous.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a threadwinner.

Why has nobody else mentioned this? This is how google's gonna either get slapped with lawsuits, find that folks switch and make openstreetmap.org suddenly usable, or even both.

Whoa.

Aaaaand none of that matters. Not many people enjoy sitting there, mapping stuff, so openstreetmap is not going to get any better without corporations contributing to it like they do with Linux kernel.

Lawsuits doesn't matter much as well - with Google's power they can either:

- Afford a settlement, bunch of them - Make the litigation to take long-long-long time - Lobby for some law to protect them.

Nobody ain't gonna switch to anymore. Folks that are ok with Apple maps are already using it and besides Apple maps there is no huge competitor. Here we Go maps are good for navigation but they don't know anything about business around you so good luck finding anything that you don't know precise address for.

Even folks on iPhones who use Apple Maps have Google Maps installed. For me it:

- I just drive around to a place I know about: Apple Maps - I need to find a place by name: Google Maps - I go to bush: Here we Go maps a maybe Google Maps because I can download them as well.

People need to realise that Google is unstoppable machine right now with _enormous_ resources and they can do almost whatever.

Recently EU slapped a "huge" fine on Google. So what? What happened? Has anything changed?

The real solution is for corporations who depend on navigation services is to pay people to contribute to openstreetmap like it happens with Linux kernel right now. Freedom for people, tool for business, all win.

OSM has better data in certain aspects. The big problem with OSM is not about the data, but that it isn't designed to be used as a map. When someone visits osm.org, it is very barebones and the search feature doesn't work very well to find places unless you know the syntax. The team working on OSM themselves say that OSM is not a map, but instead a database.

Anyway, Google would never have gotten the data that it has without the contributions of the people. And the dedicated mappers in my city have all turned to OSM now. Hence leading to better mapping in terms of road data, bicycle paths and other features that businesses do not care about mapping.

I agree with the search, but being a map is where OSM shines.

When I visit google maps a see a bunch of colorful boxes and notable locations, I have no idea why it chooses the notable locations it does but it appears to be either paid or some sort of SEO shenanigans, a local curry place is list but one of the biggest train stations in the country isn't (Southern Cross in Melbourne), recently they've also tried to cover the map with the "explore" panel.

When I look at the same area with OSM it shows the train station and shows me the street names with the street names all those colored boxes (buildings) are information, without them they're just noise.

And when you zoom into Google Maps, the colours for "built-up area" and "open space that isn't a park" get more and more similar until they're almost indistinguishable, so from certain point on all you're seeing is a bunch of streets against a featureless grey background, which I find rather irritating.

> dedicated mappers in my city have all turned to OSM now

That's very encouraging to hear! It motivates me to push more for using OSM in client projects, as it's the best alternative to Google Maps, especially if the latter starts showing ads.

"The big problem with OpenStreetMap is... ...that it isn't designed to be used as a map"

I can see given the name that that could be confusing to some people.

But there are very good mobile apps that use OSM data. In my experience, OSM data can be excellent in some areas, and dismal in others. So, literally, YMMV. Fortunately, OSM data is excellent where I live, so I use that.

It's a label on the map, like a road name. It may be unwelcome, but it's not dangerous.

Depending on the place name and how obnoxious the popup is, it may be yet another thing for someone to be reading at a bad time, which could cause a collision.

With road signs and billboards, the road is still in your peripheral vision, but with many car/cupholder mounts you have to look down enough to where you can't really react to a car coming at you from the left or right.

Probably when you stop, for example while at a stop light. This is how Waze is doing it too.

Waze started doing this and it’s annoying, but I’m already looking at waze so it’s typically when I’m stopped or during some other period where I think it’s safe to look at my phone while driving.

I feel sorry for the advertisers as it’s dumb stuff like showing me an ad for “there’s a kfc nearby would you like to eat here” when I’m driving to a business meeting at 10am.

While you are probably right that its dumb, this would have totally made me go to KFC on weekends when I half heartedly drive around to a destination.

But how likely are you to use Waze when you are half heartedly driving around to a destination? I mostly use Waze when I care about finding the fastest route somewhere (because I feel it has some of the most up to date traffic info), which is when I would least want a detour to some other business along the way.

And sometimes for driving long distances to get notifications of things along the way (like speed traps). In those cases I guess I could use ads for where to stop and eat but since Waze only shows ads when stopped (as far as I can tell) the likelihood of it showing me something relevant at the right time I’d want to grab a bite to eat while cruising down the highway seems unlikely.

The only value I see in it is reminding me that oh yeah there is a KFC around here maybe I should try it next time. And maybe they have some way to show attribution there (after all they have location info so maybe they can see how many people go to that business within a certain number of days of seeing an ad, or after a certain number of exposures to the ad).

It's ridiculous on a smaller phone, on my SE these ads for fast food and gas takes up most of the screen. Also ironic considering waze is a pretty locked down app regarding preventing the driver from being distracted and fiddling with it on the fly. If I'm hungry I'll punch something in, and if I need gas I'll stop at any of the half dozen stations on the side of the road, not because of a waze ad. In fact I'll probably start subconsciously avoiding these places that are ruining my navigation experience.

Waze is a Google app.

Well, good thing Apple maps is getting better. And there's also HERE Maps which is getting better.

Here has gone downhill since Nokia/Microsoft sold it.

Before that, it was the best map solution with a huge margin.

I really, really, really wish there was serious competition to Google Maps. That's the one Google product I've had to repeatedly come back to because there's nothing even close in terms of functionality available for Android. I was hoping Here WeGo would be an alternative, but it's kind of a joke. I'd install Apple Maps if I could. I'd trade in my Pixel for an iPhone if it didn't mean losing real Firefox, NewPipe, and root-level ad blocking.

The world of mobile computing is so confining!

What about having "real" Firefox is the important part?

Is it supporting Mozilla, or supporting browser engine diversity, or is because real Firefox has more checkmarks on caniuse.com?

Extensions like ublock origin.

This is a huge thing for me.

The ability to have the same setup on desktop, tablet and phone is just unbeatable.

(Yes, I know you can do this with Safari on Apple-things and chrome on the rest too)

I could agree with all 3 of those points, but I'm mostly thinking of the latter. The iOS browser engine isn't bad, but it has security quirks with things like iframe navigation and it still somewhat lags behind with PWA features. As a web developer who likes to tinker, I just don't find it ideal to be saddled with the browser engine that comes with iOS.

All iOS web browsers are forced to use the Safari web engine, unlike on Android where the Firefox Preview (Fenix) and Firefox Focus are using a mobile-optimized version of Gecko called GeckoView.

Also, iOS Firefox doesn't allow the installation of add-ons.

> I really, really, really wish there was serious competition to Google Maps.

Can we have a crowsourcing sort of app where every user of GoogleMaps would contribute data to be scraped off to circumvent rate limiting ?

What features on Google Maps that you like are not on other map platforms?

if Google Maps becomes too difficult or terrible to use, and there's a better competitor, users will naturally switch to the alternative. Unless you guys can start something better, you'll just have to use Google Maps? I don't think Apple Maps or any other service has a good enough data or feature set right now or forseeable future, outside of the California or US geographic area.

Either Google Maps raise it's developer API pricing to support all their investment into the service, and I'm sure it's not cheap to support, especially with their streetview efforts, or else ads go into the consumer side. For a long time we enjoyed the free ride from Google Search's desktop revenue.

Sygic, Tomtom, iGo, Garmin (HW) are very solid maps with good coverage in Europe and nearby countries. They have big POI databases, more or less good search, usually good UI (and optimized for driving). They primarily lack traffic (e.g. Sygic has maybe 1% of what Google has for traffic info), social info (reviews, pictures etc.) and maybe some general polishing. But if people will decide to switch then these particular features can be added and covered. But no way people will turn from ad infested spyware to pay for apps. 20$ vs 0$ - the answer is clear.

I'm betting this is going to appear the same way as it does on Waze, which shows fast food logos along your route, as well as popup ads whenever you're stopped. Annoying, but not intrusive enough to be considered a driving distraction, IMO.

IMO they are pretty distracting. When I'm stopped is when I glance at the screen to see my next move, and these popups persist for me when I start moving unless I close them. Pretty ironic considering waze is the most fussy navigation app regarding not letting the driver get distracted, unless it's profitable I guess!

> The gallery ads are part of an effort to make search results more visual.

By distracting from legitimate results?

Like others will say here, I finally switched to DDG earlier this week. It’s good enough and you get accustomed to doing a !g pretty quickly when needed.

Adding !s for startpage is a good option too. Google results without the tracking.

That's great, thanks. Didn't know about Startpage.

They often lag behind the Google and even DDG results by a while, so search anything time-sensitive first with DDG then with Google if you still can’t find it.

This is "break glass in case of emergency" levels of desperation.

Indeed. The reason I used the google homepage in the first place was how uncluttered it was. Adding ads and disturbing that quality seems like a phyrric move.

This is about mobile apps. Not desktop homepage.

Why would Google be desperate, though? They are hugely cash positive, have enormous cash reserves, and essentially no competition outside of China.

> and essentially no competition outside of China

They have less eyeballs, I presume. Their competition is FB + IG + Whatsapp + whatever it is today's young people spend their time on. They could have made YT as socially engaging as Instagram but they failed along the way.

Have you ever heard of niko niko douga? (niko niko video)

No, I have not, but I find quotes like the ones bellow (taken from the article) as pure lies told to their investors:

> The company wants to make it easier for users to discover and buy new products because they shop in spurts while watching TV or sitting in the bathroom

No, no-one in the under-40 target is sitting in front of the TV and then is deciding to shop for stuff, almost everyone in the under-40 target is sitting on their phones (mostly on FB + IG + Whatsapp) even when watching TV, even when in the bathroom, and it's in there (on FB + IG + Whatsapp + other social networks) that the buying decision is made. TV is for the older-than-40 audience.

Growth is slowing and ad load has already reached its limits. If Google has any undeveloped real estate left, there's going to be ads on it.

Because they appear to be obsessed with growth at nearly all costs. Which each passing month it looks more and more likely that short term thinking has began to drive how Google acts and reacts.

This has been getting more and more clear for a while. I had already lost a lot of respect after Google decided to become a defense contractor, but this is just greedy and antithetical to the values that made most of us start using Google in the first place.

Google has been selling garbage ad placements for years which has been an obvious revenue boosting game, but nobody seemed to care.

Let’s hope Google gets its priorities back in order. I had thought Schmidt leaving the board was a good thing, but he seems to have been pushed out by those whose incentives are much more short term.

Companies can be hijacked by people with the wrong incentives.

They have had many years of revenue growth that exceeds eyeball growth. They did that by slowly pushing organic results down the fold in favor of ads. That trick is played out now...there's little real estate above the fold left to cede to ads now.

So, to maintain revenue growth that exceeds eyeball growth, they need new tricks.

Basically, they set the bar very high.

My wish is that adds fill the first SERP so that I can just go to page 2 and be done.

Damn you, Overture, why did you have to do that!

In my experience with Google search, it rarely gives me useful results on the first page. So much so that I've developed a bit of muscle memory. When I have to resort to doing a Google search, I have to consciously stop myself from immediately clicking to get the next page of results.

Greed? Please Wall Street?

I don't really know really. Maybe the executives are in fear they will be swept out if they are not delivering on hiking the stock price?

>no competition outside of China

For now. Duck is growing and I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple build their own. Not to mention, the use of content blockers is rising.

For some years now I have the feeling Apple is investing in / helping DuckDuckGo. The most obvious indications are that DDG was added to the list of search engines in Safari, and DDG uses Apple Maps (example [1]). I bet Apple is using DDG to weaken Google while officially keeping a distance.

I also bet Apple is not interested in running a search engine themselves. They would either have to muddy their brand by allowing questionable results, or filter everything that is not family friendly and risk being seen as the big censor.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=silicon+valley%2C+usa+map&t=h_&ia=...

Now that they've used DBM, DFP, and AdExchange to cement their U.S. ad monopoly, they can only get more growth by shutting down the flow of money to the rest of the internet. So they need more inventory of their own to compete with that of their clients' (e.g. other websites that use Google Analytics, DFP, GCP, AdWords, etc).

I would love to see an estimation of the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted by companies (and by consumers who buy their products) on Google ads.

If an advertiser buys ads and attributes results to them, how is that a waste?

What a boring take. They haven't even started selling your personal data to 3rd parties yet.

"In Maps, ads will now appear in recommended search queries, on routing pages and during navigation"

Ugh, this is sad and clever at same time - during navigation screen is on all the time and one usually glances at route from time to time even if it is just "straight ahead" for couple of kilometers. Moreover ad will be potentially visible to all passengers as well.

My thought was always that they were going to start using businesses as landmarks, aka:

"At Monument Dr. - just past the Starbucks where if you stop now you can get a piping hot Venti coffee for only $1.50 - make a right"

They already do this; it's roughly in the form of: "take a left at sunset boulevard, right past the jack in the box".

I suspected it was a paid ad, but never knew for sure

I believe they've stated these are not ads, but are strictly for navigation.

That makes it an unpaid ad.

Cynically, yes, but this is how humans follow directions anyway. Are your friends giving you an unpaid ad when they say "head down main st, past the Burger King"?

Plausable deniability is the name of the game. If an unusually well informed group has trouble telling, are they free to do either?

That's how you navigate if you had absolutely nothing to follow but word of mouth and need to remember every step, vs. a highlighted line on a map you just chug along without having to think more than a turn ahead, which you are reminded of anyway.

That's a terrible practice for me. The way my brain works, street names are far more useful than landmarks, particularly if those landmarks are businesses.

They already do this heavily in India. Mostly due to a lack of good road signage. Landmarks are what defined navigation. Where I live (Bangalore), we have junctions named after KFC and Sony, cos those stores have been there for so long.

"How much to route traffic off the interstate past my business?"

on a serious note - the Telsa in-car mapping app uses google map tiles, and they are choosng what businesses show up with icons when you look at the map.

Does Tesla's system already show ads in place discovery/search results? I would imagine they have a "no ads" contract with Google.

define "ads"? If something doesn't have "special offer" popups or a slogan, yet bubbles to the top of search results...

It's pretty telling when you search "bar" or something in a given area and the most commercial places pop up with icons and names, obscuring a sea of minor red dots that are also in fact bars. And moving the map tiles doesn't automatically research either. Unless you thoroughly scrubbed an area, searching and researching for "bar" every half dozen blocks, you are only going to gleam a small % of the places in that area.

At least they haven't brought this corporatism to google earth desktop yet. I can pull up on the map every single bar and restaurant in Los Angeles in one search if I wanted to.

Anyone who buys ad slots in Google Maps is basically trying to kill their customers.

As an investor this makes me wary. How much short term value are they gaining by sacrificing user satisfaction? Google's UX is pretty top notch today and they don't really have any relevant competitors. With this move, they are creating space for differentiation along better UX and potentially losing out a share of users over time.

> Google's UX is pretty top notch today

I very much disagree, but I also think that's a subjective thing.

I'm already considering ditching the Gmail app as it displays ads at the top that look just like new e-mails (I was an Inbox user before); although I am not quite sure what app to switch to.

Sadly there isn't really an alternative that even approaches Maps. There are a lot of 'ok' alternatives but Maps is just in an other league in terms of POI, Navigation and UI.

I experienced the same thing too until I disabled the Promotions tab.

For mails i would highly recommend K-9 Mail. Using it for years now works really well. Has a bunch of Features like dark mode and what not.

As for maps tough...

As someone who disabled GApps on my phone and uses only OSMAnd, I've found it acceptable for me, but know others would not be satisfied.

At least if/when I search and fail to find, I remember and add it later when I get to a desktop. Slowly, OSM should end up being able to serve my uses well enough, and hopefully others too.

What would the default ads be on a search homepage considering there are no "keywords" to scope it to? I'd imagine non-targeted billboard-style ads by default with some targeting at the account level? Would it include retargeted ads?

Edit: nevermind, it's not on a blank search page, it's embedded within some news-feed style UI, so it's probably just straightforward google mobile ads

Remember that on mobile by default google pushes the feed on the search page instead of leaving it blank. Desktop is spared the indignity, for now.

What is "the feed?" Feed of what?

Since google tracks customers they can target a lot without keyword searches. I can imagine the homepage click price would be high for “pregnant women over 45 with an income over $100k” and stuff like that.

Time to install a mobile browser with ad-blocking capabilities. Suggestions? I haven't used Firefox on my phone in years, but I remember it being slower than a snail

Brave on iOS is legit

Doesn't Brave substitute their own ads?

You can opt out of that revenue sharing thing if you don't want it.

Ads aren't really the problem for me, it's the trackers.

I use firefox on Android. I think it's gotten better lately.

Firefox on android works fine for me and supports all the extensions of their desktop browser.

I was a FF on android fan for year but wouldnt take the initial super long page loads anymore. The first webpage of the day was taking 10+ seconds to load, almost like it was fighting with DNS. I switched to Kiwi Browser and have been super happy. Fork of Chrome, lets you use any extension you want, no tracking and nightmode

Firefox works great for me on Android and supports uBlock Origin, Decentraleyes, etc.

Try Blokada (https://blokada.org/), it blocks ads system-wide.

A similar one, also for Android, is Block This https://block-this.com/

(PS By looking at their respective GitHub pages, Blockada seems more actively developed though)

Can you vouch well for this? I'm always concerned with an app that routes all my traffic through a VPN.

It's open source and I haven't heard anything negative about it. Only downside is that using a VPN at the same time is probably (?) impossible.

> I'm always concerned with an app that routes all my traffic through a VPN.

Many of these use the VPN subsystem of Android, but are not actually VPNs -- that is, they aren't routing anything off of your device. Using the VPN subsystem is just a way to be able to filter network traffic without having to have rooted your device.

The only downside is that you can't use such an app and a real VPN at the same time.

Brave browser for Android has served me well since 2017, but I am seeing some AdWords/Adsense crap filtering in every now and then. Still, it's so rare that I find myself having to mention that it does happen.

Firefox mobile has improved a lot recently. I didn't use it for years but now it runs better than chrome. Not to mention reader mode and no ads!

There will be no ads on the mobile site, only the app.

If you are on android you can block ads entirely by setting a private DNS provider, and using one that blocks ads. For IOS you can use a VPN to do the same.

iOS has native support for ad blocking services; no need for a VPN. I've been using the Privacy-centric blocker service provided by Firefox Focus.

Looking at the settings in Firefox Focus, it seems that's only picked up by Safari, correct? I guess if I have Firefox Focus installed I might as well just use that as my browser

Yeah, only Safari uses them. The non-Focus Firefox app also has tracking protection built in, if you'd like to have tabs and such.

The main reason that you'd use Safari instead of a different browser is that it has better support for newer standards. Every other iOS browser is powered by an iOS webview, which Apple lets lag behind a bit.

The big difference is that you can block ads, analytics, and other tracking outside of safari using a VPN, or using a private DNS provider for android.

Firefox Focus with tracking protection and content blocking. You can use your favorite browser and use Focus to block ads.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/focus

I’ve been using Firefox Focus with DDG on mobile for about a year and don’t miss Chrome even a little.

Thanks. I think that's the direction I'm headed as well

Firefox on mobile is really good these days. With tracker-blocking enabled it usually performs better than Chrome for me. Most of the time these days websites are slow because of all the trackers and ad traffic.

They also have some cool features like being able to send tabs between different devices.

Firefox on mobile has definitely improved a lot over the last couple years. It, plus uBlock Origin makes the web incredibly more tolerable.

I installed Kiwi Broswer and have been super happy with it, a fork of Chrome with no tracking, ad-block and built in nightmode

To be honest I’m surprised it took them this long.

Now Google maps will use more bandwidth, yipee.

This is actually the reason I stopped using Google Maps for most of my navigation. It used up most of my 5 gb monthly allotment over the timespan of a week of travel/driving.

I typically only use ~500 mb of data per month otherwise.

You can download a local cache of the map data. I have my whole city saved and I think the app is around 500mb in size now.

A lot of places outside of US (like Tokyo for example) simply don't support offline caching mode, which makes google maps a real data hog when you travel.

Yes, that's what I've done for my home city, but it's not especially practical when travelling, when compared to other mapping apps that let you download entire countries' map data at once.

Are there any navigation apps that don't use any bandwith? Phones have GPS receivers, why do they need data to navigate while a Garmen doesn't.

Not gonna lie, I would rather just pay for google maps.

I would pay $1 a month, which would be exponentially more money google extracts from me than with ads I'll never engage with.

You're here; therefore, we can assume you're a high-value consumer to advertise to. When enough people take the $1/month option, advertisers will be primarily advertising to consumers with low purchasing power. As that happens, the cost of advertising on Google AdWords nosedives, and Google is left making substantially less money.

Maybe most people aren't like you and I. But I don't think anyone at Alphabet is willing to risk adding complexity to potentially earn less.

This ignores the potential fallout as the message can be distorted from "Optional payment for Google Maps" to "Google starts collecting money for Maps", and finally to "Google Maps costs $X".

Apple pretty please launch a slightly cheaper phone for us tightwads so that we can ditch Android and Google, once and forever.

Already using DDG. Been trying to run my own mailserver.

The cheapest iPhone (iPhone7) is selling for $449 new in the US. I'm not sure how cheap you are but this is reasonable compared to Android phones

That is definitely a good price point, and works for me, and I'm genuinely tempted.

I'm waiting for the fall update to see if we're going to finally see the SE2.

You can get an iPhone 7 for a lot less than that too if you wait for a sale from a retailer like Best Buy or a cell carrier and not from Apple directly.

I get down voted often for saying iPhone is cheaper, like the old man said, price is what you pay and value is what you buy. Android and Google are expensive.

I traded my 6S for an 8. Got the 8 for $399 after trade. That's pretty cheap for a great phone.

I got a 128gb SE for less than $250 shipped on ebay, graded at B condition but I couldn't find a scratch on it, not even by the ports (yes, plural :^) and the battery is at 95% health. Just as quick as an x in real world use, the screen repair is way cheaper, and I could stretch the battery life two days.

I love the size too, the last one handed iPhone and I forget it's in my pocket.

I love the SE too, I really hope they release another small phone within the next year.

It's only expensive if you want to pay extra for a status symbols. I have a 5500mah Android phone with a great screen and hardware that costed me around $150

That's not at all what I am referring to. With Android you are basically carrying Google's (play services) remote monitoring device.

For $150 device (whichever company subsidized that device) you are the product.

For the sake of argument, let me point out that you don't have to install google play services on Android device. (Unlike Apples's world, here you actually have a control over your phone)

Does anyone have suggestions for an Android based alternative to Google Maps? (preferably open source, etc)

I've seen https://maps.me recommended on HN before. It's based on OSM.

I would suggest osmand.

The basic version is free, you can download data state by state (country by country when you are traveling) so it doesn't need a data connection on the road (but online search is available if you do have a data connection). It does routing for cars / bikes / pedestrian and has decent turn-by-turn instructions that you can configure to your liking. The underlying data comes from OpenStreetMap (hence the name of OSM + and(roid)), so if the data is wrong you can fit it yourself.

You can get the paid version for free if you download it from F-Droid.

Thera are a ton of OSM apps that are quite good but Google Maps still wins with the search function.

Here (WeGo) maps maybe?

Maps (Offline OpenStreetMap maps) - https://f-droid.org/app/com.github.axet.maps

Forked from maps.me, but without their tracking or ads.

Please tell me you have F-Droid installed.

I am from India and sometimes jealous of China and Russia for having good local Google alternatives, Baidu and Yandex respectively. Google has more than 95% search market share in India and there is no competitive product even close.

Probably AMP sites? I wonder what will be the carrot and stick in this scenario for ad buyers.

Simply avoid using google services. They are pathetic. Let's see what the European Union says about this aggressive advertisement. Especially the Google Maps thing will obviously trigger our consumer care responsibles.

Seeing as there are other options freely available, I doubt there will be any action because ads are annoying.

The safety aspect of displaying ads in a navigator on the other hand...

I'm so glad that I gave up using Google's apps and services.

Google had a massive multi-quarter campaign to get people to install their Google App recently across all possible mediums...now it's clear it was tied to this ad-push.

"Sun to rise, set"

Pathetic.

duck.com has really gotten good recently.

The article has been corrected to reflect the fact that it doesn't include mobile site, only the app.

Perhaps OP could edit their headline as well?

Thanks! We've updated the headline from “Google to show ads on homepage of mobile site, app”.

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