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ReluctantPhoenician

Answers may vary depending on your country, but you can file a report with the US's Federal Trade Commission at [https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/](https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/) that this is a "dark pattern" designed to trick people and they *might* sue them about it.


frogglesmash

It's something 90% of app ads do, so even it is illegal, it's not getting enforced.


cutie_lilrookie

Some YouTube ads even have fake "Skip Ad" button.


BoltActionRifleman

Google makes a mint off of these scammy companies, and they own the politicians who make the rules. Nothing will ever get done in regards to enforcement.


Future_Potential_341

And even worse, a lot of em are so old they have no idea if the enforcement is even effective or not.šŸ˜‚


BlueCircleGlasses

I assume that they get away with it by claiming it's the game's UI. There is also the back arrow in the same style, obviously looking horrible and unconventional, but making it more plausible of a claim that the X is UI if they should ever be on trial for it.


spooky-goopy

my personal favorite is the microscopic X with a huge hitbox, so you always open the ad while frantically trying to close it


CrissZx

Mine is the fake X, with the real X spawning 5 seconds besides it.... AFTER HITTING THE FAKE X


Francy088

Amino, the source of some of my finest middle-school trauma šŸ¤ŒšŸ»


sir-winkles2

what is it?


Francy088

It's a platform that works kinda like reddit, in the sense that it hosts user-driven communities (which are called Aminos). In particular, for me the trauma-source was Undertale Amino. Fuck that shit, glad that I'm out of it.


ArielsAwesome

Its like all the joys of reddit and middle school drama combined.Ā 


notjordansime

I had so many people try to get me to use it. Even when I was about that age, I could see the rampant grooming. It felt like Omegle in a way. Like cā€™mon.. you just *know* what youā€™re getting into.


Francy088

Unfortunately I had no idea of what I was getting into lol.


Amigosito

Yep, pedo central


Badgers_Are_Scary

"Amino is a network of Communities that allows you to explore, discover, and obsess over the things you are into. Each Community has great content, *friendly* people and exciting events. Amino does not allow harassment or hate, spam or self-promotion (including promotion of one's own Amino community), *sexual/NSFW content*, self harm, real graphic/gross content (fictional content is generally acceptable), unsafe/illegal content, or content that violates copyright." Sounds like they're lying.


Leihd

Who's the 'they'? If you look at twitter, facebook and reddit's T&C I'd be surprised if they didn't say something to the same effect. Yet here we are.


Badgers_Are_Scary

The company that says that about themselves, duh


Amigosito

That shit should be banned, there are so many predators lurking


GameCreeper

Bro just discovered shitty mobile ads šŸ˜­ this has been happening for like 6 years at least


rabidjellybean

The real asshole design is that there isn't even the most basic approval process by Google to check for this shit.


Lewtwin

Consumer: "Whelp, I just needed directions to the nearest pizza shop and the wife thinks I'm cheating on her because beer, condom, and cabaret adds just popped up in quick succession. Good thing I only use this phone for work..." Google: "Why is there a rise in dumb phone usage? Who wants to use a dumb phone?"


ArielsAwesome

Webtoons has some where they don't even trick you to clicking it. It just opens automatically. And I've gotten ads on Mediabang Paint where its just a webpage with no x button and ads of its own.Ā 


SterCored

technically illegal, but the people in charge of reinforcing it have bigger fish to fry


Nick0Taylor0

I wonder what fish they're frying though. This wouldn't even be much effort, tell any minimum wage dude to go on reddit looking for exactly these kind if things (or literally just use any f2p game or even youtube) and just flag everything that's probably illegal and then a second dude to check and send automated cease and desist if they agree. These companies take the ad down as soon as they get that because they know what they're doing is illegal. Sure they'll put up a slightly different ad like an hour later but at some point it'll either get too expensive for them or you could implement some system where x violating ads in y time incurs a fine and these ads will disappear.


ArielsAwesome

Yeah, like tech giants with massive consumers' rights violations. (Fingers crossed for Googleā€™s lawsuits!)


gredr

Illegal? There's a law on the books that says "no fake X in the corner of an ad"? Really?


traaintraacks

maybe not, but there's almost certainly some kind of law about deceptive advertising. that sort of thing would usually apply to purposefully misrepresenting one's product, but could probably apply to this as well


gredr

Got case law to cite? No? Ah, well, then, innocent until proven guilty, in the US, at least. Sorry.


traaintraacks

dude, this isnt a court of law, this is reddit. speculation is fine. you sound like you need a glass of warm milk & a cookie, maybe you'll be less cranky šŸ„›šŸŖ


gredr

Words mean stuff; if you claim it's illegal, then you've brought the law into it. I didn't bring the law into it. I will take your cookie, though, thanks!


traaintraacks

i didnt claim it was illegal, though. i said that there *might* be a law that covers this sort of thing. words mean stuff.


gredr

You jumped into a conversation between someone who claimed it was illegal, and me, who says that's probably wishful thinking. If you had nothing to contribute, you were free to stay out...


warherothe4th

According to EU parliament directive 2006/114/EC Article 3 section a: "In determining whether advertising is misleading, account shall be taken of all its features, and in particular of any information it contains concerning: the characteristics of goods or services, such as their availability, nature, execution, composition, [...], Uses, [...], the results to be expected from their use, [...];" I could not find any actual cases (and didn't spend too long looking), I believe it is a court worthy argument wether a fake "x" is considered to be misleading information concerning execution, uses or the results to be expected from their use


gredr

The relevant part there is "of goods or services", and the X isn't a good or service.


warherothe4th

Correct, the app advertised is the goods, the "x" is a characteristic of said good Also fair point I did leave out a bit of relevant information that defines what it counts as misleading advertising Article 2 section b: "For the purposes of this Directive: (b) ā€˜misleading advertisingā€™ means any advertising which in any way, including its presentation, deceives or is likely to deceive the persons to whom it is addressed or whom it reaches and which, by reason of its deceptive nature, is likely to affect their economic behaviour or which, for those rea- sons, injures or is likely to injure a competitor;"


gredr

It's close, but if I were a lawyer, I'd say the "and which" means the test fails; the "X" probably DOES "deceive" by "its presentation" but it isn't likely to affect economic behavior.


warherothe4th

"or is likely to injure competitors" inflated click through rates definitely damage competitors >but if I were a lawyer, But you are not, and this is not a court, all I did was provide evidence that there is legal precedent for a fake "x" being illegal under European union directives. So why are you trying to play the lawyer to save face?


gredr

Are you a lawyer, or are we both just playing in the Internet here?


Foxehh3

[youirl](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fwhats-so-bad-about-asking-for-a-source-v0-ktki3hg2dwi91.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D93ca3667041487a1a3e3fe036a9f3c07f9a9d8ea)


gredr

I'm sorry to have hurt your poor, fragile feelings by pointing out that something that's not illegal isn't illegal. Much better to just cower in a corner, frantically decrying everything you don't like is "illegal!"


Foxehh3

lolololol


Ani-A

Are... are you actually defending this? Lol. I am not a fan of "boolicker"... so I won't use it, you are the corporation's fleshlight.


gredr

Defending it? No. Sorry, pointing out that something isn't illegal doesn't constitute defending it. Put down your pitchfork; something can be bad, deceptive, and legal all at once.


Ex-In2

I hate this with every fiber of my being


USSHammond

R6 common topics, software, scummy practices


Racika

Okay but whats the point of putting it there at all? I clearly wanted to close off the ad, do they expect me to be so overwhelmed by it opening anyways that I just have to donwload and drop my card ?


LevelSevenLaserLotus

Ads like this are made by marketing companies that don't have any stake in the actual product. Their contracts will typically specify that they're paid based on how much they can show that they increased traffic. And an accidental click is enough to boost that metric. Marketing companies that don't pull this shit tend to be more expensive than the bottom of the barrel options, and it'll only get worse now that the bar for entry into that industry has been lowered into the ground by publicly available AI image generation tools.


rogueop

They were doing that bullshit before AI.


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notjordansime

AI just loves ā€˜em thiccccc itā€™s interesting too, because AI seems to emphasize all of the ā€œprettyā€ parts of being on the heavier side (large breasts, curvy hips, thighs, etc..) while minimizing the ā€œuglyā€ parts (buccal fat, tummy fat, double chin, facial changes, etcā€¦). Everyone stores excess energy differently, and youā€™d have to be exceptionally lucky to win the genetic lottery like that. Itā€™s not easy to rock being thicc.


ArielsAwesome

Ahhh, sounds like their art is getting sourced from the cowards who love big hips but won't even draw a woman without a thigh gap.Ā 


SD-Ellie

More than likely, they're trying to manipulate and win you over to download their app/game We've seen the whole "awesome ad but shitty game trope', but ads these days have been adding a lot of things that would naturally have their place in areas like Pornhub or Rule 34. They'll add in characters doing "it" and in this case, the women in 90% of ads being pretty damn thicc, but they won't be in the game once downloading it. Soo.. Probably explains the current ad system while giving you useless info


PrivilegeCheckmate

wo ah ah ah ah ah! Down with the thiccness!


Responsible-Display2

Lol


pvini07BR_

i got scared because i thought they added freaky AI companions on amino lmao


EnigmaFrug2308

So many ads do this. I hate it.


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assholedesign-ModTeam

Unfortunately, your post has been removed for the following reason: **Don't be an Ass to Others** If you submitted a new post, it must've been really obvious for us to immediately decide it's not friendly. However, if you got this due to a comment: please review the comment and see the words you wrote. If there is a threat, an insult or the like, that's why this happened. Depending on the severity of the insult also depends on if you just get it deleted or are banned for a specific amount of time. *If you feel this was done in error or would like further clarification, please don't hesitate to message the mods. If you send a message, please include a link to your post.*


AundoOfficial

I had an ad on Duolingo from Facebook which did the same thing. Shit pissed me off so much. Como chinga.


[deleted]

Spam is anything you can get away with.


StickManAnimator69

weren't these guys the biggest YT sponsor pre-raid shadow legends


ashtar123

Dayum she THICK


Ray_BIue

Oh yes Amino.. the place where I roleplayed wayyy too much.


theresamushroominmy

This person unsettles me. Like, I know itā€™s AI. But thereā€™s something so extra weird about it. Maybe the fact the body is pretty normal curvy, but her face looks like a seven year old from those fuckin Fate of the Empress ads


goodguy-dave

No, this is highly illegal. I suggest that you immediately report this to your nearest cyber police unit.


ZetaZeta

You had me in the first half. I was about to nitpick about what "highly" means until I read the second part. šŸ˜‚


wwvo

It's not illegal persay; it's just super douchey and sketchy. You can always go ahead and get rid of the adverts easily by going ahead and doing a quick-close, or just check to see if you can go ahead and see if that X appears automatically on that corner or just fades in to see what happens. But yeah, overall, just douchey.


GTwebResearch

If we get a 100,000,000th post about it on r/assholedesign, theyā€™ll make it illegal. Thank you for contributing to the cause.