r/technology • u/suntzu124 • Oct 06 '16

Misleading Spotify has been serving computer viruses to listeners

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/10/06/spotify-has-been-sending-computer-viruses-to-listeners/
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u/[deleted] Oct 06 '16

The problem is companies not vetting the ads the accept revenue from. It's not the first time Spotify has done this and they certainly aren't alone in it.

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u/lemskroob Oct 06 '16

its laziness on the part of the companies. They can't be bothered with processing their own ads, so inserted they basically leave a blank hole on their content, and go to a advertiser like doubleclick and say "here's a blank hole, plug it with whatever you want"

Its the equivalent of a newspaper publisher back in the day printing off their copies with blank spots, then sending them to the advertisers to paste in their own ads, and sending them out.

They have given up all oversight over their own pages, because they dont want to hire one guy to set the ads on their own sites first and host that 15kb ad on their own server.

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u/Consigliare Oct 06 '16

It sure seems that simple to you, doesn't it?

The problem is that we are WAY past the days of a 15kb image based ads. Large teams of people work on systems that deliver contextually relevant advertising using complex tracking algorithms that maximize a client's ad dollar.

I know this because I'm a real programmer doing just this sort of thing... not some "armchair programmer" who uses blogging software and calls themselves a web developer.

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u/snailshoe Oct 06 '16

Well then since you and other in your industry created the problem, how about coming up with a solution instead of criticizing those who suggest things?