#Google Ads

[mostlysignssomeportents]

There’s never just one ant

So there's a great Thai restaurant in my neighborhood called Kiin. Yesterday, I searched for their website to order some takeout. Here's the Google result.

That top result (an ad)? It's fake. It goes to https://kiinthaila.com, which is NOT the website for Kiin.

The *third* result is real: https://kiinthaiburbank.com

Fake site:

Real site:

I got duped. I placed an order with the fake site. The fake site then placed the order - in my name! -  with the real site, having marked up the prices by 15%. Kiin clearly knows they're doing this (presumably by the billing data on the credit card the fakesters use to place the order). They called me within minutes to tell me they'd cancelled the fakesters' order.

I could still come pick it up, but I'd have to pay them, and cancel the payment to the fakesters with Amex. Actually, as it turns out, I have to cancel TWO payments, because the fakesters DOUBLE-charged me.

Here's what that charge looks like on my Amex bill. See that phone number? (415) 639-9034 is the number for Wix, who provides the scammers' website.

How the actual FUCK did these obvious scammers get an Amex merchant account in the name of "KIINTHAILA" by after supplying the phone number for a website hosting company? What is Amex's KYC procedure? Do they even call the phone number?

And why the actual FUCK is Google Ads accepting these scam artists' ads for a business that they already have a knowledge box for?! Google KNOWS what the real KIIN restaurant is, and yet they are accepting payment to put a fake KIIN listing two slots ABOVE the real one.

To be fair to these scammer asshole ripoff creeps who are trying to steal from my local mom-and-pop, single location Thai eatery, they're just following in the shoes of Doordash and Uber Eats, who did the same thing to hundreds (thousands?) of restaurants during lockdown.

Doug Rushkoff says that the ethic of today's "entrepreneur" is to “Go Meta” - don't provide a product or a service, simply find a way to be a predatory squatter on a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who use those things.

These parasites have turned themselves into landlords of someone else's home, collecting rent on a property they don't own and have no connection to.

There's NEVER just one ant. I guaran-fucking-tee you that these same creeps have 1,000 other fake Wix websites with 1,000 fake Amex merchant accounts for 1,000 REAL businesses, and that Google has sold them ads for every one of them. Amex and Google and Wix should be able to spot these creeps FROM ORBIT. Holy shit do we live in the worst of all possible timelines. We have these monopolist megacorps that spy on and control everything we do, wielding the most arbitrary and high-handed authority.

And yet they do NOT ONE FUCKING THING to prevent these petty scammers from using their infra as force-multipliers to let them steal from every hungry person patronizing every local restaurant.

I mean, what's the point of letting these robber-barons run the entire show if they're not even COMPETENT?

ETA: Dinner was delicious

[nando161mando]

To the Capitalists, ads are art and advertising is their cultural expression!

[whydidisavethistomyphone]

Getting western media on their side isn’t enough, they have to pay google to push their narrative too.

[techjouney111]

Simplifying Website Design and Development: Your Ultimate Guide

Simplifying Website Design and Development: Your Ultimate Guide

In today's digital age, having a strong online presence is essential for businesses of all sizes. A well-designed and developed website not only enhances your brand image but also serves as a powerful marketing tool to attract and engage customers. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore everything you need to know about website design and development, including services, companies, and agencies in the USA and Canada.

Understanding Website Design and Development

Website design and development encompass the process of creating and building a website from scratch or redesigning an existing one. It involves various elements such as layout design, user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design, coding, content creation, and optimization for search engines.

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Professional website design and development services cater to the diverse needs of businesses seeking to establish or enhance their online presence. These services typically include:

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Website Design and Development Companies and Agencies

In the USA and Canada, numerous companies and agencies specialize in website design and development. These firms offer expertise in creating high-quality websites tailored to clients' unique needs and preferences. Some key characteristics to look for in a reputable website design and development company or agency include:

Experience and Expertise: Choose a company with a proven track record of delivering successful projects across various industries.

Portfolio: Review their portfolio of past work to gauge the quality and diversity of their designs and developments.

Client Reviews and Testimonials: Read reviews and testimonials from previous clients to assess their satisfaction and experiences.

Communication and Collaboration: Look for a company that emphasizes clear communication and collaboration throughout the project lifecycle.

Affordability and Value: Consider companies that offer competitive pricing without compromising on quality and value-added services.

Website Design and Development Companies in the USA and Canada

In the USA, reputable website design and development companies include:

ABC Web Solutions: A leading web development firm specializing in custom website design, e-commerce solutions, and digital marketing services.

XYZ Creative Agency: Known for innovative web design, responsive development, and SEO optimization strategies tailored to clients' specific needs.

123 Digital Studio: Providing comprehensive website design and development services, including UI/UX design, CMS integration, and ongoing support.

In Canada, notable website design and development companies include:

Maple Leaf Web Design: Offering professional website design, e-commerce development, and SEO services for businesses across Canada.

Great White North Digital: Specializing in responsive web design, custom development, and online marketing solutions to help Canadian businesses thrive online.

True North Web Solutions: A full-service web agency providing creative design, robust development, and strategic digital solutions tailored to clients' goals.

Conclusion

Investing in professional website design and development is crucial for businesses looking to establish a strong online presence and attract customers. By understanding the services offered and choosing reputable companies or agencies, you can create a visually appealing, functional, and user-friendly website that drives business growth and success.

Whether you're based in the USA or Canada, there are numerous options available to help you achieve your website design and development goals. Take the time to research, compare, and select the right partner to bring your vision to life and propel your business forward in the digital landscape.

[troglodytesgroundhole]

from @omarknowsphotos on tiktok

[emtechredijitalajans]

Emtechre Digital Agency: Your Gateway to Exceptional Web Design

Emtechre Digital Agency: Your Gateway to Exceptional Web Design Today, for your company’s online success, a professionally designed website can make a difference. We at Emtechre Digital Agency are devoted to designing websites that are visually stunning and have high functionality that enthrall the audience and yield tangible results.

We have a team of talented designers and developers who are capable of making your online presence a powerful tool for growth. After all, we realize that your site means more than just some web pages; it represents your brand as well as a vital point of contact with potential customers.

Our approach to web design is based on providing outstanding user experience. The website must be intuitive, visually beautiful and easy to navigate. Consequently, by implementing latest industry standards and best practices, we develop seamless and engaging user interfaces which will impress the visitors in an enduring way.

Emechre Digital Agency is proud to offer you customized solutions for your needs. We know every business has different goals and needs. Our team will cooperate with you in designing and deploying a solution that suits your vision whether it is a sleek informative website, a robust e-commerce platform or dynamic web application.

We are naturally built to stay ahead of the rest. We keep up with new technologies and trends so that your website remains modern, functional, and future-proof. From mobile first design that optimizes well for different devices, to incorporating interactive elements that enhance user engagement, we infuse innovation into every aspect of our web design process. Our partnership with clients is based on integrity and openness. We value your contributions and opinions, believing that a successful website is a result of teamwork. All through the web designing journey, we keep you posted by giving updates frequently and seeking for your feedback so as the final product will be beyond your expectations.

In conclusion, Emtechre Digital Agency is your go-to partner for web design excellence. Our team of experts combines artistic creativity with technical prowess to create stunningly beautiful websites that move your business forward. Employing an approach that is aimed at addressing the users’ needs, offering tailor made solutions as well as being committed to technological change leadership; we will ensure you make an impressive online footprint. Trust Emtechre Digital Agency to transform your website into a powerful asset that sets you apart from the competition and propels your business to new heights.

[primoresplendens]

OH. So now Google gets to lock me out of ad rewards if they don't like my "attitude" while watching their ads? Is that the way it is??? 😐😐😐

(Context: it's either one out of two things: I took the time to opt out of all of their ad clients collecting data *which they probably will collect regardless, or: I refused to take time to answer one of their survey ads "truthfully", and instead bullshitted it a few times in a row. Then this happens)

[shawonmarketing]

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii !

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google makes millions on paid abortion disinformation

Google’s search quality has been in steady decline for years, and Google assures us that they’re working on it, though the most visible effort is replacing links to webpages with lengthy, florid paragraphs written by a confident habitual liar chatbot:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

The internet is increasingly full of garbage, much of it written by other confident habitual liar chatbots, which are now extruding plausible sentences at enormous scale. Future confident habitual liar chatbots will be trained on the output of these confident liar chatbots, producing Jathan Sadowski’s “Habsburg AI”:

https://twitter.com/jathansadowski/status/1625245803211272194

But the declining quality of Google Search isn’t merely a function of chatbot overload. For many years, Google’s local business listings have been terrible. Anyone who’s tried to find a handyman, a locksmith, an emergency tow, or other small businessperson has discovered that Google is worse than useless for this. Try to search for that locksmith on the corner that you pass every day? You won’t find them — but you will find a fake locksmith service that will dispatch an unqualified, fumble-fingered guy with a drill and a knockoff lock, who will drill out your lock, replace it with one made of bubblegum and spit, and charge you 400% the going rate (and then maybe come back to rob you):

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/fake-online-locksmiths-may-be-out-to-pick-your-pocket-too.html

Google is clearly losing the fraud/spam wars, which is pretty awful, given that they have spent billions to put every other search engine out of business. They spend $45b every year to secure exclusivity deals that prevent people from discovering or using rivals — that’s like buying a whole Twitter every year, just so they don’t have to compete:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/how-a-google-antitrust-case-could/

But there’s an even worse form of fraudulent listing on Google, one they could do something about, but choose not to: ad-fraud. For all the money and energy thrown into “dark SEO” to trick Google into putting your shitty, scammy website at the top of the listings, there’s a much simpler method. All you need to do is pay Google — buy an ad, and your obviously fraudulent site will be right there, at the top of the search results.

There are so many top searches that go to fraud or malware sites. Tech support is a favorite. It’s not uncommon to search for tech support for Google products and be served a fake tech-support website where a scammer will try to trick you into installing a remote-access trojan and then steal everything you have, and/or take blackmail photos of you with your webcam:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/google-search-ads-infiltrated-again-by-tech-support-scams/

This is true even when Google has a trivial means of reliably detecting fraud. Take the restaurant monster-in-the-middle scam: a scammer clones the menu of a restaurant, marking up their prices by 15%, and then buys the top ad slot for searches for that restaurant. Search for the restaurant, click the top link, and land on a lookalike site. The scammer collects your order, bills your card, then places the same order, in your name, with the restaurant.

The thing is, Google runs these ads even for restaurants that are verified merchants — Google mails the restaurant a postcard with a unique number on it, and the restaurant owner keys that number in to verify that they are who they say they are. It would not be hard for Google to check whether an ad for a business matches one of its verified merchants, and, if so, whether the email address is a different one from the verified one on file. If so, Google could just email the verified address with a “Please confirm that you’re trying to buy an ad for a website other than the one we have on file” message:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Google doesn’t do this. Instead, they accept — and make a fortune from — paid disinformation, across every category.

But not all categories of paid disinformation are equally bad: it’s one thing to pay a 15% surcharge on a takeout meal, but there’s a whole universe of paid medical disinformation that Google knows about and has an official policy of tolerating.

This paid medical disinformation comes from “crisis pregnancy centers”: these are fake abortion clinics that raise huge sums from religious fanatics to buy ads that show up for people seeking information about procuring an abortion. If they are duped by one of these ads, they are directed to a Big Con-style storefront staffed by people who pretend that they perform abortions, but who bombard their marks with falsehoods about health complications.

These con artists try to trick their marks into consenting to sexual assault — a transvaginal ultrasound. This is a prelude to another fraud, in which the “sporadic electrical impulses” generated by an early fetal structure is a “heartbeat” (early fetuses do not have hearts, so they cannot produce heartbeats):

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/heartbeat-bills-called-fetal-heartbeat-six-weeks-pregnancy-rcna24435

If the victim still insists on getting an abortion, the fraudsters will use deceptive tactics to draw out the process until they run out the clock for a legal abortion, procuring a forced birth through deceit.

It is hard to imagine a less ethical course of conduct. Google’s policy of accepting “crisis pregnancy center” ads is the moral equivalent of taking money from fake oncologists who counsel people with cancer to forego chemotherapy in favor of juice-cleanses.

There is no ambiguity here: the purpose of a “crisis prengancy center” is to deceive people seeking abortions into thinking they are dealing with an abortion clinic, and then further deceive them into foregoing the abortion, by means of lies, sexually invasive and unnecessary medical procedures, and delaying tactics.

Now, a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate finds that Google made $10m last year on ads from “crisis pregnancy centers”:

https://www.wired.com/story/google-made-millions-from-ads-for-fake-abortion-clinics/

Many of these “crisis pregnancy centers” are also registered 501(c)3 charities, which makes them eligible for Google’s ad grants, which provide free ads to nonprofits. Marketers who cater to “crisis pregnancy center” advertise that they can help their clients qualify for these grants. In 2019, Google was caught giving tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of free ads to “crisis pregnancy centers”:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/12/google-advertising-abortion-obria

The keywords that “crisis pregnancy centers” bid up include “Planned Parenthood” — meaning that if actual Planned Parenthood clinics want to appear at the top of the search for “planned parenthood,” they have to outbid the fraudsters seeking to deceive Planned Parenthood patients.

Google has an official policy of requiring customers that pay for ads matching abortion-related search terms to label their ads to state whether or not they provide abortions, but the report documents failures to enforce this policy. The labels themselves are confusing: for example, abortion travel funds have to be labeled as “not providing abortions.”

Google isn’t afraid to ban whole categories of advertising: for example, Google has banned Plan C, a nonprofit that provides information about medication abortions. The company erroneously classes Plan C as an “unauthorized pharmacy.” But Google continues to offer paid disinformation on behalf of forced birth groups that claim there is such a thing as “abortion reversal” (there isn’t — but the “abortion reversal” drug cocktail is potentially lethal).

This is inexcusable, but it’s not unique — and it’s not even that profitable. $10m is a drop in the bucket for a company like Google. When you’re lighting $45b/year on fire just to prevent competition, $10m is chump change. A better way to understand Google’s relationship to paid disinformation can be found by studying Facebook’s own paid disinformation problem.

Facebook has a well-documented problem with paid political disinformation — unambiguous, illegal materials, like paid notices advising people to remember to vote on November 6th (when election day falls on November 5th). The company eventually promised to put political ads in a repository where they could be inspected by all parties to track its progress in blocking paid disinformation.

Facebook did a terrible job at this, with huge slices of its political ads never landing in its transparency portal. We know this because independent researchers at NYU’s engineering school built an independent, crowdsourced tracker called Ad Observer, which scraped all the ads volunteers saw and uploaded them to a portal called Ad Observatory.

Facebook viciously attacked the NYU project, falsely smearing it as a privacy risk (the plugin was open source and was independently audited by Mozilla researchers, who confirmed that it didn’t collect any personal information). When that didn’t work, they sent a stream of legal threats, claiming that NYU was trafficking in a “circumvention device” as defined by Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a felony carrying a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine — for a first offense.

Eventually, NYU folded the project. Facebook, meanwhile, has fired or reassigned most of the staff who work on political ad transparency:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get-you-coming-and-going/#potemkin-research-program

What are we to make of this? Facebook claims that it doesn’t need or want political ad revenue, which are a drop in the bucket and cause all kinds of headaches. That’s likely true — but Facebook’s aversion to blocking political ads doesn’t extend to spending a lot of money to keep paid political disinfo off the platform.

The company could turn up the sensitivity on its blocking algorithm, which would generate more false positives, in which nonpolitical ads are misidentified and have to be reviewed by humans. This is expensive, and it’s an expense Facebook can avoid if it can suppress information about its failures to block paid political disinformation. It’s cheaper to silence critics than it is to address their criticism.

I don’t think Google gives a shit about the $10m it gets from predatory fake abortion clinics. But I think the company believes that the PR trouble it would get into for blocking them — and the expense it would incur in trying to catch and block fake abortion clinic ads — are real liabilities. In other words, it’s not about the $10m it would lose by blocking the ads — Google wants to avoid the political heat it would take from forced birth fanatics and cost of the human reviewers who would have to double-check rejected ads.

In other words, Google doesn’t abet fraudulent abortion clinics because they share the depraved sadism of the people who run these clinics. Rather, Google teams up with these sadists out of cowardice and greed.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/paid-medical-disinformation/#crisis-pregnancy-centers

[Image ID: A ruined streetscene. Atop a pile of rubble sits a dilapidated shack. In front of the shack is a letterboard with the word ABORTIONS set off-center and crooked. In the foreground is a carny barker at a podium, gesturing at the sign and the shack. The barker's head and face have been replaced with the Google logo. Within the barker's podium is a heap of US$100 bills.]

Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[furryfeet]

[elleberquist6]

Getting ads for laptops after Google-ing troubleshoot fixes for a pc is the modern-day equivalent of being circled by buzzards in the desert

[nando161mando]

"Repeat a 1,000 times: #Google is an #advertising moloch and #Chrome browser monopolist, NOT your friendly free service provider!

Google is about to smack down on the #OpenWeb, killing it with their so-called "Web Environment Integrity API" #DRM proposal.

"Wanna watch those #Netflix or #Youtube vids? Better have Chrome without #AdBlocker then"

"Here's plenty #ads. Now hand over your #PII so we can grow our #SurveillanceCapitalism empire"

#GiveUpGoogle #DitchChrome

[hidigital]

"Mastering Web Development: Key Strategies for Effective Website Design"

"Discover top-notch tips and tricks for web development to enhance your website's design and functionality. From responsive layouts to intuitive navigation, learn how to craft user-friendly experiences that captivate your audience. Dive into the world of web development and elevate your online presence today!"

#webdevelopment #webdesign #userexperience #responsivedesign #websitedesign #webtips #webdevelopmenttips #digitalpresence"

[lunaseo23]

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐬?

𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬, 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥. 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡, 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭-𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬, 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥-𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬.