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Yahoo News Posts Advertisements as News

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.

4 of 396 comments (clear)

  1. Blah by danielrose · · Score: 0, Troll

    who picks these stories anyway?? they must be really hard up for stories on slashdot these days....

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    i hate pansy republicans
  2. Must be a bad attempt to Slashdot Yahoo... by Gzusfreak · · Score: 1, Troll

    Because, the worst I see is that damn X10 ad.

    Has anyone else seen this? If not, I think that this AC readr should win Troll of the Year for 2002. Way to fool the editors...

  3. Re:X10 ads and why I loathe them by Philbert+Desenex · · Score: 1, Troll

    I heard a rumor that X10 ads were actually CIA-sponsored spyware of some sort. I know that doesn't make sense, how could a "pop-under" actually contain spyware? Then I remembered that 90% or more of the web surfers use Internet Explorer - the X10 "pop-unders" probably have an ActiveX control in them. Remember NSA_KEY? It's not beyond MSFT to collaborate with the CIA. Also, the X10 ads seem to run in cycles - you get an X10 ad on just about every page load for a week or two, and then none for 6 months, and then they're back.

  4. Re:X10 ads and why I loathe them by kilgore_47 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Now, call me a prude if you must
    You're a prude.

    You got a problem with half dressed women?

    I don't like seeing x10 ads any more than the next guy, so I set their cookie to block them, but it's not because there's "scantily-clad" women in them.

    I'm sure you're email didn't get deleted along with all the "ads are annoying" emails they get every day; it was probably instead deleted along with all the conservative stick-up-the-ass emails they ALSO get everday.

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    The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin