When is it enough? Fraud, ill-gotten gains. META and billions.

[rproffitt]

With at nod to the news it continues to amaze many that sites aren't just a little bit worried that the pendulum will swing back or the sword of Damacles will finally drop.

I don't consider this a fine or fines. Crime shouldn't pay.

[rproffitt]

Imgur is getting feedback about Google Ads too. NOT SAFE FOR WORK EXAMPLE at https://imgur.com/gallery/interesting-ads-on-imgur-yY4ZSC4

Social media sites and companies want to use the "I didn't do it" defense.

At some point when the US returns to The Rule Of Law, a reckoning.

[Dani]

What about all the fraud items being sold on Amazon?

[SCBWV]

@rproffitt I'll add an interesting case. A while back, I searched for "how to use Windows Fax and Scan" on Bing.com. I clicked on one of the videos in the results and noticed it was an embedded YouTube video. I viewed the page source wondering how they could embed a video when I'm having trouble doing so. The source code is huge and wasn't any help to me, but I noticed NUMEROUS references to icons of porn sites. WTH? So, I sent feedback form and got the run-around.

“Quality and integrity of search results are important to Bing. So that we can complete our review of your request, please provide the specific term(s) or URLs you would like removed in an editable electronic format (e.g., Word or a .txt file). The URL(s) cannot be a www.bing.com URL because these pertain to search results and are not the original location.”

To which I replied: "I did. Everything you asked for is below in my email: Search term, link to the results page, and the questionable text in the source code of the results. I don’t know what else you’re asking for or need."

I'm no web programmer, but:

1. How could someone at Microsoft not understand the link and info I sent?
2. What in the world do these references have to do with Windows Fax and Scan videos?

Here's a sample entry. Maybe one of the experts here can tell me what it does and why it's there (and still is there).

.youpornIcon:after{margin-right:4px;width:16px;background-image:url(/rp/1JvgFHr_wVj20suZsZ2JOwueOh8.png);background-position-x:-1904px}.metadataArea .metadataBar

[Dani]

The page of Bing results includes a little icon next to each of the websites in the results. However, let's say there are 100+ results on the page. Downloading 100 tiny files is very resource intensive with so many HTTP requests. Instead, it makes more sense from a performance perspective to download one big file that includes all the tiny icons that will be used on the specific page, and then use CSS to isolate them into looking like separate icons. These big files are called CSS sprites. The URL https://www.bing.com/rp/1JvgFHr_wVj20suZsZ2JOwueOh8.png?toWww=1&redig=C073967D3F9242A1A4F930A3E186106E, I assume, is a sprite sheet that includes one or more of the icons on the page. Probably due to inefficient programming, the HTML of the page includes the CSS used to generate each and every one of the icons contained in the sprite. The CSS that you provided says that the YouPorn icon is located 1904 pixels into the 2991 pixel wide file of all icons. That does not mean that the YouPorn icon actually exists anywhere on the Bing webpage. Excess, unused CSS is extraordinarily common.

I'm a bit confused by your story, though.

[SCBWV]

That's interesting. I now understand what's going on. Thanks. My story is simple: I didn't know why the porn site icon references were there; I didn't know why they were asking for redundant information; and now, I don't know why Microsoft couldn't explain it as simply and eloquently as you did. Thanks again.

[Dani]

I don't know why Microsoft couldn't explain it as simply and eloquently as you did.

Because you filled out the form complaining about the quality of the search results. There was nothing wrong with any of the search results. The person answering your question is a quality assurance person tasked with looking for illicit content within the results you were shown. That person is not a web developer who would be familiar with the technique of using CSS sprites to improve page speed by reducing the number of HTTP requests. The technique does not impact what shows up on the webpage. In fact, most pages on DaniWeb load CSS that is 90% unused on the page.

[Dani]

... Similarly, a DaniWeb moderator responding to a flagged post would look at the contents of the post and react accordingly. The CSS, Javascript, and technical SEO techniques that DaniWeb uses would not be of thought nor concern to them.