Microsoft Taking a Hard Stance Against Misleading and Malicious Advertisements

[engine]

Microsoft is making moves to combat misleading ads which could also deliver malware and misleading downloads to users. From June 1, 2015, Microsoft will enforce the new evaluation criteria. Here's examples of what it classes as misleading ads, and a more details about the new warning for users in IE when SmartScreen is turned on.

Advertisements: The advertisement should not mislead you into visiting another site or downloading files.
Advertisements shown to a user:

Must not mislead or deceive, or confuse with the intent to mislead or deceive
Must be distinguishable from website content
Must not contain malicious code
Must not invoke a file download

Enforcing our criteria

When SmartScreen Filter is turned on, Internet Explorer will notify you about sites that contain an advertisement that is detected under our evaluation criteria. The warning will look like the following example:

We are currently updating our evaluation criteria to address new technology changes, industry trends, customer feedback, and our desire to help better protect our customers. We are working with the industry and our partners to understand and implement these changes.

Microsoft Taking a Hard Stance Against Misleading and Malicious Advertisements

[webcentric]

I wonder if people who use Adsense on their sites are going to start getting hit with this. There are ads for malware sites (not to mention other forms of questionable ads) in the Google SERPS so one would assume they also get through in Adsense. Just putting Adsense on your site could get you flagged.

[engine]

Well, that's a good point, webcentric. I would have thought that Google's efforts to stamp out ads that are malicious will help, but it's the other types of ads in this which may make a difference to the AdSense Publishers.

Google's own efforts are indicated in this post. [webmasterworld.com...]

[J_RaD]

GOOD! I WISH ALL OF THIS STUFF A FIERY DEATH!

[incrediBILL]

This is a better approach than Google and Firefox blocking individual sites because of malware ads detected which only catches one site at a time, this would warn users about any site seeing the same kinds of malware ads.

I like the approach as it casts a wider net and theoretically protects more people.

Who knows, maybe this and some of their other tech will bring people back to IE, Edge, whatever it is next week by offering higher levels of security.

Funny how the OS and browser once considered least secure has turned it around to be the most secure is recent years. More importantly, they've have more time to deal with being in the hackers cross hairs while the rest of the OSs got ignored. My how the tables have turned.

[samwest]

It's about time! Funny how Adsense's own targeting software places misleading ADSENSE ads next to legit downloads. Maybe Google could learn a thing or two from Microsoft's lead and not allow misleading ads in the first place.