Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

Re:Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers by Nadya on Monday August 29, 2022 @07:56PM (#32645047)

> And when people _are_ shopping around, they search for things like "best vpn providers 2022"

Which coincidentally a number of VPN "review" sites were purchased and the lists "updated" to recommend a certain owner that I'm fairly certain at this point is a honeypot.

https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn...

https://www.techradar.com/news/pc-mag-owner-j2-global-buys-s...

Kape Technologies was formerly known as Crossrider before it was acquired by Teddy Sagi, an Israeli billionaire that has spent time in jail for insider trading. Crossrider itself never had that great a reputation itself, what with their primary product being a development platform through which they were frequently used by third parties to invade ad platforms to serve up malware.

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Re:Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers by sam0x17 on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @03:20AM (#32647558)

Completely right, but my point is it's the review sites / honeypots that move the needle on whether people will choose A over B, not A or B out-bidding each other in Google Ads.

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Re:Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers by HWR_14 on Monday August 29, 2022 @09:12PM (#32645565)

IIRC, there are quite a few review networks set up like that. John Oliver's Drug Rehabilitation episode pointed out that the same thing happened with "independent" reviews of drug rehabs.

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