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Fake News Scam Sites Advertising On Real News Sites

Posted by kdawson on from the maze-of-twisty-passages dept.

Virtual_Raider writes "Wired is running a story about a new twist in the never-ending quest to prove P. T. Barnum's adage. Old: Scammers are creating fake news sites that look almost like the real thing. New: They are advertising on real news sites, making it difficult for unwary readers to catch on they are being duped with fake coverage of get-rich-quick scams. Among those running the scam 'news' ads are the Huffington Post and Salon. From the article: 'The story has art, it has a sidebar, there's weather, supposed reader comments — even ads. Steadman is described as "a mother from San Francisco" — at least, when I read the article. Thanks to cutting-edge reporting techniques perfected by News 5, she will automatically move to the geolocation of your internet IP address when you read it. Look, she lives right in your neighborhood!'" Forbes also wrote about the scam news sites a couple of weeks back.

4 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. ABC Should Crack Down by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Intriguing article. I like the ad that uses Barbara Walters' photo and claims

    Barbara talks about the "Miracle Pill" known as Resveratrol

    Notice they didn't user her last name. But they use her image and the abc News logo ... their domain name is hilarious, news3news.com (looks like newsnews and 3news were taken, ha) which leads one to the registrant residing at:

    PO Box 12068
    George Town, Grand Cayman KY1-1010

    P.O. Box in the Cayman Islands. Imagine that. They don't even bother to use domainsbyproxy or a similar service like most of the other domains listed in this Wired story.

    Selling questionable meds is probably pretty hard to prosecute ... but using abc's logo and Walters' image for advertising is definitely prosecution worthy. I hope some of these companies go after this scum.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:ABC Should Crack Down by tb3 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think the crackdown should be on Visa and Mastercard. Think about it; it's illegal to receive stolen goods, or sell stolen property, but the credit card companies are acting as intermediaries for these crooks. And, oh yeah, taking a cut (something like 3 - 5%). If the credit card companies had to take more responsibility for who they granted merchant accounts, under penalty of law, I'll bet these fraudsters would find it a lot harder to operate.

      --

      www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance

  2. Old news. by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Newspapers run similar ads (with a tiny "Paid Advertisment" banner on the top) and I've heard of TV stations doing the same thing with "Fake Newscasts" but that's usually more common during election years.

    --
    ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  3. Google and Slashdot Should Crack Down by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Recently both Google and slashdot have been running ads for "you can make 11,668.00 from home" lately. The ads are served up by google to sites like slashdot, and it's the same modus operandi: Ask you for $2 for information, then bill you $70 to $90/month for a "subscription" you supposedly agreed to.

    For search pages, google can argue that it's just conveying information for free. For ads it serves, google has no such safe harbour - it's a for-profit business, and they really should crack down on these obvious scams.