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Comment by BSDobelix | Hacker News Reader

What i really don't understand at least here in Europe the advertising partner (adsense) must investigate at least minimally whether the advertising is illegal or fraudulent, i understand that sites.google etc are under "safe harbor" but that's not the point with adsense since people from google "click" the publish button and also get money to publish that ad.

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I have reported over a dozen ads to AdSense (Europe) because of them being outright scams (e.g. on weather apps, an AdSense banner claiming "There is a new upgrade to this program, click here to download it") . Google has invariably closed my reports claiming that they do not find any violation of the adsense policies.

Do you report those only to Google, or also to your local watchdog/police/commerce regulator?

Same thing with Instagram, they accept all scam ads.

Google and Meta are trillion dollar criminal enterprises. The lion's share of their income comes from fraud and scams, with real victims having their lives destroyed. That is the sad truth, no matter how good and important some of their services are. They will never stop their principal source of income.

They’re far too embedded politically to ever face consequence too. I hope someday we can get a serious anti-corruption candidate.

The law is only for plebs like you and me. Companies get a pass.

I'm still amazed how deploying spyware would've rightfully landed you in jail a couple decades back, but do the same thing on the web under the justification of advertising/marketing and suddenly it's ok.

>Companies get a pass.

I'm pretty sure that if Springer were to make a fraudulent ad, they would instantly be slapped with a lawsuit and face public outcry.

Springer itself is nothing but scam.

True, but at least the ad's are not ;)

Which one of the two Springer-s? ;-)

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