Some months ago, Google introduced AdSense Auto-Ads, which promised to make website monetization easier and more effective. It sounded kinda cool, so I tried it out, and … nope.
Too many ads, too obtrusively placed. Better for revenue, worse for user experience. I quickly switched back to a single ad per page, unobtrusively placed in the right sidebar.
Fast forward almost two years. I visited my blog and was shocked to find spammy-looking ads everywhere. In the header, mixed in with the content, multiple ads in the sidebar, and even in the footer.
Crap, I’ve been hacked. Tried a few malware scans which turned up nothing. I looked closer – these look like legitimate AdSense ads, but they’re everywhere.
Turns out in their infinite wisdom and benevolence, Google decided to not care that I don’t want spammy ads. I thought I had opted out of Auto-Ads by deleting the ad code from my page headers. But that was no longer good enough for Google. Unless I logged into AdSense and explicitly forbid Auto-Ads, Google took it upon themselves to make the decision for me.
So, in a sense (an AdSense to be specific), I was hacked. By Google. Curse you Google.
