No, I mean there are ads with a "close button" in the corner, and then a few seconds later the real close button will appear and it'll weirdly overlap it. Because the first one was fake, just part of the image asset of the ad.

They're very very clearly click-fraud tricks, and most platforms will ban them if they're caught. But by clicking on the ad, it closes the ad, and there's no way to go back and report them, nor incentive for ad-viewers to do so. By design, IMO.

The whole industry runs on scams like this, there's no incentive for large platforms to proactively block any of them because they lead to money moving through them, where they can extract their rent. They only move against the most egregious, to keep fraud at the same barely-acceptable level as all the others.

▲ mbirth 2 days ago | parent [-]

> The whole industry runs on scams like this

Wasn’t there an article here a few days ago about Facebook specialising in hiding such malicious ads from testers and law enforcement to maximise gains?

▲ Groxx 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yep: https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-created-playbook...

	▲	mbirth 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		And here's the HN discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446838

▲ transcriptase 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes. Basically the internet version of the Volkswagen emissions scandal.

  if(testdetected == 1)
  ecm.lowemissions
  else
  lmao.fuckyouregulators

▲

red-iron-pine 2 days ago | parent [-]

the difference is that the average rube and/or average lawmaker have some basic understanding of how cars work.

petrol goes in, toxic gas comes out, so make toxic gas less.

most of them have 0% understanding as to how data mining works or how online ads (and scams) function

	▲	immibis a day ago \| parent [-]
		It was about advertising for scams, not tracking. That's easier to understand than a car.