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Google Text Ads For Known Malware Sites

Posted by kdawson on from the not-evil-no-sir dept.

notthatwillsmith writes "We all know that Google purges known 'attack sites' — sites that deliver viruses, spyware, or other malware to visitors — from its index of searchable sites, but that doesn't stop the text ad giant from happily selling ads linking to those sites. One wouldn't think it would be any more difficult to cross-reference the list of purged sites with the list of advertisers than it was for the main search index, would it?" To be fair, the article says that Google shut down the ad when notified of it; and no other examples of linked malware are offered. Was this a one-time oversight?

1 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Other examples. Google still evil. by Animats · · Score: 1, Troll

    That's not a lone example. Search with Google for "craigslist auto posting software". These are all paid Google ads:

    • "CL Posting Software www.adsoncraigs.com The worlds Best Selling CraigsIist software. Works with new CAPTCHA!"
    • "Craigs Works Must Try Us webtrafficus.com We do the work no software To Buy Best Service All Ads Guaranteed Up"
    • TopPost Inc. www.toppost.com The Leader in Posting Services 866-895-6888 -- info@toppost.com
    • Buy Craiglist accounts Phone verified accounts, hassle-free, only 4.95$/account . www.craigsup.com

    We track the "bottom feeders" in Google AdWords over at SiteTruth. We consider about 36% of Google's advertisers, out of a set of 20,000 ad domains, to be "bottom-feeders" - no visible business address, or we have other negative info. If you download AdRater, our Greasemonkey script for Firefox, we rate the advertiser behind every Google ad you see and display a rating icon on top of the ad. (Yes, the plugin "phones home". It tells us lots of stuff about the advertiser, which we're interested in, and very little about the user's browsing, which we don't care about. The plugin is open source, so you can check this.)

    With the information we have, it's painfully obvious that Google isn't picky about their advertisers. The example in the article is one of many, not a unique exception.

    Google CEO Eric Schmidt was quoted last month as saying "The Internet is fast becoming a cesspool" Was he complaining, or boasting? Much of that is Google's doing.