Does Google Inserting Deceptively Placed Ads in the Play Store seem icky to anyone else?
i.imgur.com
They've started inserting a subtle ad as the first result instead of the actual app you're searching for.
This has to have been a change over the last month or two I feel like?
I'm having to reprogram myself to view the first result as irrelevant. Really makes me want to increase the F-Droid alternatives that I use.
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I've clicked the "install" button on the ad by accident, more than once. The ad precedes an exact match, super dark pattern.
Yeah that's the part that is frustrating. It's such an aggressive implementation of a dark pattern knowing the users muscle memory. It's akin to suddenly switching the placement of 'Accept'/'Decline' after years of being in the same place.
What surprises me is that it feels more like a money grab from a struggling app than the company in charge of ads across a large percentage of the world.
I always imagine you people as the boomers on infomercials. Accidentally clicking shit, installing zero days from random sources, and just heavily fighting to practice cyber hygiene with commission unsuccessful results.
As a person that has a muscle memory for pressing the first row. I disagree with you here. I had to relearn pressing the actual app. For iOS I do not have this issue even though they also practice this as I had no muscle memory since I rarely use iPhone.
"You people", very kind. As if people doing things on autopilot isn't universal and implementations like these aren't meant to trigger that exact thing. Read up on UX, and implementations of dark patterns. Perhaps have an attempt at empathy too.
"People like you" make the internet such a bad place sometimes. Generalizing, exaggerating, calling names...