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Yahoo Sued for Spyware, Typosquatting-Based Ads
An anonymous reader writes to mention a Yahoo! suit involving allegations of spyware and typosquatting-based ads. From the article: "The suit claims that Yahoo displayed these advertisers' online ads via spyware and adware products and on so-called 'typosquatter' Web sites that capitalize on misspellings of popular trademarks or company names. Potentially more explosive is the plaintiff's claim that Yahoo regularly uses its relationship with adware and typosquatting sites to gin up extra revenue around earnings time, alleging that the company is conspiring to boost revenue by partnering with some of the Internet's seamier characters."
Two words - YAHOO TOOLBAR.
It's still better than T.V. advertising, or national newspaper advertising.
You are only paying for people who followed the link
not for people who have just seen it.
Newspaper advertising cost is based on circulation
T.V. on expected audience figures.
roughly.
We had massive problems with the Yahoo toolbar out at the university I used to work at. Not only did it portal in all the spyware we could ever choke on, it was often installed by way of some sites that our lab computer users were fond of visiting.
Is it just me or are 90% of these helpful little utilities nothing more that spyware in the end, toolbars and accelerators just bog down the machine and sprout security leaks like a zarking seive.
like advertising speech could somehow be "improper".
Jesus, I'd like to just see some proper advertising speech again before I die.
Old school proper advertising speech:
"Our car has more hp than either Ford or Chevy. It's better. Buy it."
Modern school improper advertising speech:
"Look at my dog's ass. Ugly, ain't it?"
Old school proper advertising speech:
"I'm hot. Buy this car and I'm yours, big boy."
Modern school improper advertising speech:
"I hate that car."
What's with that "silly little fairy" ad? 'Cause any car she doesn't like I ain't buyin', 'cause I want that hot, little bitch ridin' with me.
There's something very funny going on in the world of "marketing" these days.
KFG
i agree, i never buy stuff on the first impression.
;)
usually when i see something cool, i bookmark the site, look around, and after i'm convinced that it was the best offer i go back and buy the stuff. now the bookmark made has no idea that i came from google originally.
but if it's really the case that you only made 1 sale after advertising stuff on google, i doubt that your product is any good
I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
People need to get over the fact the internet is brought to you by companies who are paying huge sums of cash to put their product in front of you and they will find any and every way to get you to see them. This is the big lie. Take a look at a decent history of the Internet, and you'll see that Internet is NOT "brought to you by companies paying huge sums of money to put their product in front of you.." Those companies saw a tool for satisfying their rapacious greed using a publicly funded utility and have since been trying to turn that utility into their own private playground. And they'll probably succeed, since our public officials are almost all whores. We'll remember a brief, shining moment when some kid with a computer and list of html codes could get a message out to hundreds of millions of people. We'll remember a day when an outfit like slashdot could have an idea and be on an even playing field with Microsoft and Sony (at least in the arena of online media). We've got at most another 2 years of a free and open internet before it becomes little more than another television. There might still be some sort of third-tier "public-access" internet, but it'll be slower, harder to get and less powerful. And we'll probably only get that as part of a bigger package, including the new "AT&T brings you the Internet!"
You are welcome on my lawn.
"People need to get over the fact the internet is brought to you by companies who are paying huge sums of cash to put their product in front of you and they will find any and every way to get you to see them."
No, internet was brought on as a collbration tool used by universities. If all the big companies disappear off the face of internet, most of the sites that were built by users as a hobby or to share information with the world would still be there and internet would still be 'good' and probably 'a better thing'
Just because they follow the ad, and then decide that they don' want to be there, doesn't mean it's a fraudulent click. Maybe they took 1 look at your website, and decided that they didn't like it. Remember that article about how it only takes .5 seconds for someone to make a judgement of your site? There's lots of times when I'll click on an ad, and then leave the site right away because it wasn't really what I was looking for.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
It's your job to make the sale, NOT Google's. If your clicks per sale ratio is poor then you have a problem.
Google got them to your page (ie. they made the lead)... it was up to you to actually make the sale (convert the lead)... perhaps you should examine your own site first? it might be confusing and difficult to actually find what they were looking for or your prices were crap compared to other sites or something else may have turned them right off buying from you...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
"...we shall fight in the <iframe>s, we shall fight in the <object>s, we shall fight in the <script> tags and in the Flash files, we shall fight around the window.open(); we shall never surrender..."