Snopes.com: Rumor has it that they are funded by AdWare
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Money Over Integrity
Claim: Snopes serves popup ads from Value Click Media (FastClick) which encourage visitors to install adware from Zango (The Axis Of Evil).
Status: True.
Example: [Collected on the Interwebs, 2008]
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I am a big fan of Snopes, and use the service routinely when getting some typical hysterical email from a friend. But for a long time now (probably at least a year), I’ve noticed that they are in bed with Fastclick, which in turn constantly serves one annoying ad on Snopes:
That ad, “Do you want to block Junk Emails?” is for a Zango product — adware (VirusTotal report here). And by running this ad, Snopes, which is highly reputable, is providing an implied endorsement of the product. I contacted Snopes about six months ago to complain, but they ignored my message. |
I responded to Alex’s blog entry about this with the following:
Ouch. I’ve sent plenty of people their way over the years. This stinks the same as weight loss, penis enlargement, and other nonsense being allowed to make ad buys from Discovery, History Channel, etc.
“We are known to deal with facts and provide the best information possible.”
“Here’s a bunch of money. Let’s exploit that trust you’ve built up.”
“Hells yeah.”
Seriously:
What really pisses me off is that I know FastClick has category options for their publishers. And, I’d bet PaperGhost’s underoos that a site producing as many impressions as Snopes can get them to filter ads from their rotation. Bottom line: they aren’t idiots and are intentionally serving such ads on their site. It’s obviously all about the big bling bling for them.
Might as well find a similar site, with ethics:
Urban Legends (minus Snopes)
If you want to send Snopes a message about this mess, here’s their contact page.
Update:
You probably shouldn’t even bother contacting them. Here’s a thread on their own forum with members bitching about such practices from September of 2005. I saved a copy of that just in case they delete it ;-)
The not-so-cute image to your left has been spammed all over MySpace via comments for months now. It’s generally posted from legit accounts that have been phished. And, it’s hyperlinked to a php file that prompts a person to download a payload of evilness when clicked. My buddy PaperGhost has dissected this toad three times now. Why three times? Asshats like to change up the payloads of poo they’re spreading from time to time. Zango and all sorts of other craptastic (technical term for “Evil Evil Bad Bad”) stuff has been bundled in this download every time. As an added bonus, it has a neat little thing built into it to phish your MySpace account info so it can spam itself from your account.