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Yahoo News Posts Advertisements as News

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sinking-to-a-new-low dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo is now putting ad banners as news stories. This is highly misleading and is an awesome way to sell out." I don't really think Yahoo has been sold in in a few years, but this is a new level of yucky. No doubt it is a sign of things to come: the news is the ad. The ad is the news. It's one step worse then the bizarre advertising/news merge that was amazingly evident when Disney/ABC was doing with Monsters Inc while Time/Warner/AOL/CNN was hyping Harry Potter. Oh, in case they change it, basically they have a list of news stories, and one of them links simply to a page advertising (not surprisingly) X-10. The link isn't marked as an ad -- its simply one of the headlines in the news list. It's one thing to have more ads... it's another to simply disguise the ad as actual news. Update The ad was yanked. For those who missed it, there were a dozen news articles, but one was an advertisement. It was indistinguishable from the actual news.

3 of 396 comments (clear)

  1. "Highly Misleading"? No, not really... by dreadpiratemark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How can anything that has the label "ADVERTISEMENT" (in all caps, to boot) above it be considered 'highly misleading'? It seems pretty clear to me....

    Okay, you don't have to like this type of advertisement and there can be thoughts about the 'psudo journalism' feel of it, but as long as it says that it's an add, how is it any different from the "Special Advertisement Section" that shows up periodically in Newsweek, Discover, Sports Illustrated, etc.? Just ignore it and continue reading what you want to read....

    -Mark

  2. They do it on TV, too by Zen+Mastuh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I quit watching TV as a teen because I was tired of the brainwashing. These days if I'm visiting someone who has it on I will watch with them so as to not be a snob. Recently I caught a little bit of Good Morning America. I was amazed by how much of the show is blatant advertising for products. My friend said most other "information" shows on TV are the same way. Every outlet in our culture is being geared towards the Consumerist movement.

    So now the "News" sites on the Internet are doing the same thing. It's sad to see the progression of the Internet from a bastion of equal speech to yet another Consumerism-in-overdrive medium.

    If slashdot starts redirecting the "Reply" button to ad sites, I'll post all my karma-capped UIDs/passwords on a first-come, first-served basis. The advertisers will win, and so will the trolls.

    --
    "What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
  3. You can easily disable ALL X10 Ads. by Julius+X · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A simple browse through the X-10 Website will reveal this page, which details their advertising policies.

    They even allow you to run a cookie which will completely disable X-10 Ads. All you have to do is click here and it X-10 ads will never again appear for the next month or so, then just click on it again to reset the cookie.

    It isn't that hard folks....theres no need to bitch about it, just fix it!

    --

    -Julius X
    remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send