this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Android
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This seems like a case of user error, considering the sponsored result is clearly not the application you asked them to install. However, the Play Store is undoubtedly trash and anti-consumer which is why I primarily use the Aurora Store even on non-deGoogled phones. Performing the same search in Aurora, that Zoho Assist app is not even in the first 20 results while RealVNC Viewer and RealVNC Server are the top two results.
No, fuck that. The ads being listed before rhe first result are intended to cause people to misclick. That isn't all on the user.
Don't excuse predatory business practices.
Are you illiterate? My very next sentence was:
If the practices are predatory, blaming the user is excusing the predatory practices. Bragging about how you use something else in that context is doubling down on blaming the user instead of the practices.
So no, I am not illiterate. You ahould have just left off the sentence blaming the victim.
They blamed both, though.
Blaming a user for falling for malicious practices designed by multibillion dollars companies is like blaming the victim of a hit and run. "It was their fault for using the crosswalk, but the driver was also wrong for not stopping."
Both sides!
Yeah, no one should have to look at what they're doing to stop themselves from making mistakes! Everyone should be able to blindly make decisions and they should always be correct!
Victims just bring it on themselves!
Of course it's user error. However a system makes it easier or harder to achieve a task or make errors. You say it's clearly not the app that was asked for. I see two equally sized icons of nearly identical color, two equally sized Install buttons if the same color. The first one being the wrong one. And this is after looking for an exact app name. I think we don't need a focus group to show this drives clicks away from the searched app and to the ad. In fact we can be reasonably sure Google's research drove the decision to create this UX. In a slightly saner timeline I'd have expected the ad to not have an Install button on it or at the very least to not use the prominent button color. π BTW I didn't downvote.
Of course, as I said - the Play Store is trash and anti-consumer. However, that does not change the fact that the sponsored application is clearly not called "RealVNC", nor does it have a logo which says or suggests it is RealVNC. If you are getting tricked by the colour of an application logo then you have problems closer to home you should be worrying about.
A few months ago I needed to install Google home for something Chromecast related, so I quickly searched the play store and installed it. Loaded it up and I see an ad, what the hell. App opens and I realise it isn't Google Home, it's something made to trick me into thinking it was when I wasn't paying attention.
Google is letting their ads steal their own users from them.
That's actually pretty funny