Snopes Pushing Zango Adware

DaMan writes "Here's something that isn't an urban legend — Snopes, the popular urban legends reference site, has been pushing adware, for at least 6 months, to users via ads displayed on its Web site. No one seems to have called them on it until recently."

Comments

The downside of adblockplus.

[ChangeOnInstall]

I've been running adblockplus for quite a while now and have effectively forgotten about issues like this. So have most others who would get upset by it. Of course then I'll unknowingly send friends/family to sites such as snopes without a second thought about malware concerns. To me it looked like a nice wholesome/clean site.

Re:I don't see any claim for driveby install

[yotto]

[i]Snopes readers... Who are generally somewhat cautious, skeptical or suspicious sorts, if only because they're most likely there to debunk some urban legend that's been going around... Are going to blindly install a shady virus scanner from a pop-up window ad.[/i]

Um, I don't send people to Snopes because they were cautious, skeptical, or suspicious. I send them to Snopes because they forwarded me an email about how a little girl in Indiana went missing and if you just forward it to your friends some company will donate $1 to the save the little girl fund or some garbage like that.

These are EXACTLY the type of people who will click on the flashy icon that says "Click here"