Fake News Scam Sites Advertising On Real News Sites

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.

Comments

Yeah, they're all claiming Michael Jackson died...

[kclittle]

... just to get you to click thru

ABC Should Crack Down

[eldavojohn]

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.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

I looked into the google money tree scam a few weeks ago after my girlfriend got a cellphone text message from a suspicious (and non requested) source trying to get her to sign up for it. She is not tech savvy, but she knows when something smells fishy. Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of people who are not tech or street savvy have gotten pulled into this scam, being charged 80 dollars a month for freely available information and having a difficult (practically impossible) time canceling the service, let alone getting their money back.

The only out the shadow company has is in their fine print, as always - even that is obscured as some of the shell sites have a timer running on their T&C page - it redirects you back to the entry page shortly after you start top read the T&Cs. Of course the rates are listed at the bottom of the page. Using noscript will allow you to view them at your leisure, but how many average Americans are using noscript and researching this in the first place?

A shame really - just one more example of how P.T Barnum was right, but also more disgusting is how some folks are willing to dup others out of their cash.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[tb3]

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.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[paazin]

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.

Interesting idea and it seems like it'd have some worth - but considering the power of these industries, it's pretty much just a pipe dream as they won't allow congresscritters to do that.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[tonyreadsnews]

I'm curious what the information they are providing is. (I, like you, think it is free elsewhere).

Are they just point to info on google adsense or other stuff like that? Or does it start with, "create a fake news site with this TOS and take credit card numbers...

If so someone could create a site that aggregates their keyword names and points out not only the scam, but the worthless crap they're selling.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[numbski]

Well, Resveratrol isn't a "med", it's just a compound found in red wine that may very well have beneficial side effect, but it's unproven in humans (at least, so far).

It's still sleazy as all get out, but just to be fair - resveratrol is perfectly safe as a supplement, but it's by no means a "med". :)

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[swb]

I've long argued that spamming/internet fraud operations should be taken down with RICO-style prosecutions that include all the "legitimate" business entities that wink-wink-nudge-nudge participate in the fraud associated with spam. SOMEBODY has to process the credit cards used to buy penis pills, transfer monies, provide hosting, etc. MANY of these entities realize they are dealing with someone less than above board but don't care (or charge more!) and supply services anyway.

Once a few major ISPs, hosting companies, and banks are tied in publicly AND find their senior executives that approved these deals in the dock answering charges they will quickly stop doing business with the "marginal" internet, and the ones who remain will charge such a percentage that there really won't be any money in it anymore.

It's kind of tiresome to watch fraud happen and keep hearing "we can't do anything about it" as if Joe Fraudster were operating out of the back of his car solo without any cooperation. The other thing I like about a RICO prosecution is that the fines and jail sentences were designed around crushing the mafia -- 10 years in prison and $25,000 fines *per count*.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[PeanutButterBreath]

I'd love to see more prosecution of fraud, but the problem with going after banks, credit card service providers etc. is that it will raise prices and limit selection for legitimate products and services.

If the alternative is that idiots get screwed trying to get rich, healthy or "confident" quick, I know which strikes me as the lesser evil.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[Frosty Piss]

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.

Unfortunatly, the worst they'll get is a Cease and Desist letter, at which point they will move on to some other image / name theft. This is really not much different than the fake drug sites (are there any REAL on-line pharmacies?).

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[Ironica]

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.

Interesting thought. How, though, are the CC companies supposed to judge who is a legitimate business and who is committing fraud? What procedures would you have them put in place? What is their burden to examine their customers' business practices? What rights do they have to terminate a merchant account based on what kind of business they conduct? Would merchants have reciprocal rights protecting them from wrongful termination? What would be the limits on the CC company's liability for loss of business if they terminate a legitimate account by mistake?

It might be more feasible to give CC companies the responsibility to forward complaints of fraud to the appropriate authorities. Maybe if someone challenges a charge, they can ask that person if they would like to file a fraud investigation request. That request would include authorization for the CC company to turn over that particular customer's records of transactions with that particular merchant to appropriate law enforcement officials for investigative purposes. Then they'd have sort of a "mandated reporter" status, where if they don't pass on the information to the authorities, they could be held liable, but they are not *themselves* responsible for enforcing law.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[IorDMUX]

Hmm. According to the article:

Mary, a mother from <script type="text/javascript">document.write(geoip_city());</script>, <script type="text/javascript">document.write(geoip_region());</script> is thriving,

geoip_city()... I think I may have been there once or twice.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[Cross-Threaded]

Yesterday, I looked at my Google mail, and in the advertising area in the bar above your in-box messages, I am pretty sure it was an ad for the Google Cash Kit, or some variant. I didn't click it to find out what it really was, so I can't confirm it.

Needless to say, I was a bit taken aback.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[WNight]

How, though, are the CC companies supposed to judge who is a legitimate business and who is committing fraud?

Basic understanding of the law. Listening to customer complaints. There are other things for later, but that'd be a huge step forward.

I dealt with Visa's complaint dept and they took the side of the merchant without *any* investigation. They quoted part of the site's terms and conditions to me, without realizing that what I'd said invalidated that. In other words, just template crap for a merchant they'd obviously gotten complaints about before.

Even if there was no crime (unlikely) there certainly was evidence that customers found this merchant's site misleading and were being billed far more than they intended and this is something they should investigate.

What procedures would you have them put in place? What is their burden to examine their customers' business practices?

Oh my god, what would they do? A company, expected to do something correctly? And how unreasonable to expect them to have, gasp, procedures.

Then they'd have sort of a "mandated reporter" status

Or all the employees would have a duty to watch for and take reports of illegal activity and report it. You know, like everyone else.

What rights do they have to terminate a merchant account based on what kind of business they conduct?

All CC contracts I've seen give them all the power... Like large ISPs, they're monopolies and their contracts represent this.

Expecting them to actually put the amount of effort into avoiding criminal affiliations that a pawn-shop owner puts into avoiding buying a stolen TV would be a good start.

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[dodobh]

There's already precent for this though. allofmp3.com is a nice precedent to cite. Visa and Mastercard already did this once, they should do it again.

What news sites is it showing up on?

[Attila Dimedici]

The summary could at least tell us what news sites it is showing up on. Huffington Post and Salon are almost as reliable as The Onion.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[geekoid]

Now what did the Onion do to deserve being listed with HuffPo~

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[mh1997]

The summary could at least tell us what news sites it is showing up on. Huffington Post and Salon are almost as reliable as The Onion. I smell another "Conservative" idiot who can't distinguish between news and editorial, and is thus enraged by "Liberal" news and gratified by "Fair and Balanced" news.

I smell an even bigger "liberal" idiot that does not have a sense of humor.

The funny thing is, is that most of the complaining about Fox News is by people that can't distinguish between news and editorial/entertainment programs. Hannity is not news, O'Reilly is not news, that blond chick with the low cut blouse and high cut skirt reading a teleprompter - that's news.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[Deag]

that blond chick with the low cut blouse and high cut skirt reading a teleprompter - that's news.

Shepard Smith???

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is packed with conservative partisans, though. You will be modded down for your heretical post and they will be modded up.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[smittyoneeach]

HuffPo felt it needed something to boost its credibility~

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[gertam]

You win another argument that no one ever took the other side on. Liberals all know what O'Reilly and Hannity are.

We all know what the blond chick is for too. And it ain't her amazing insight into foreign affairs.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[smittyoneeach]

Something about being generally savvy makes it harder for ideas like labor unions and collectivism to take root.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[Red Flayer]

Something about being generally savvy makes it harder for ideas like labor unions and collectivism to take root.

And something about lack of in-depth analytical ability makes it harder for ideas like effective government action to take root :)

For all the morons on both sides of the aisle, I just have to say that libtards and conservidiots share a lot of the same traits. But I think libtards are a little more likely to think critically than the conservidiots who parrot what they've seen on Fox -- unfortunately, their lack of good,/i> critical thinking skills sometimes leads to very stupid^Wamusing positions.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[BitZtream]

Uhm, they are all perfectly reliable if you realize they aren't in any way trying to be real news sites and that its a gag every time.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, you should also add the New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, CBC, CTV, and anything that else that isn't Fox News.

Let's face, the only true source of News today is Fox News.

Wish everyone would just block MSNBC, ABC, NBC, New York TImes and CNN from their network.

Fox News is the only American News source which is not afraid to stand up to Obama, and provide all information to it's viewers. Why is it that Fox News is the only news source in American willing to question about the US government is doing?

 

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[internewt]

You are right - there are morons on both side of the political spectrum. (There are people who are also morons if they think there are only 2 sides).

There's no shortage of people lining up to parrot left-wing anti-corporate "facts", just as there are right-wingers who will needlessly defend the latest big business policy that has the real effect of fucking over the little guy, the environment or society.

But when it comes to genuinely smart people, they tend to be what Americans label as "liberal", and the rest of the world would call centrists or centre-left. There are intelligent people who are on the right, but they tend to use their smarts for business or personal gain, and as they benefit from their actions they fail to acknowledge the downsides of their actions. No doubt they recognise the downsides, but admitting it would probably be a death sentence for them or the businesses they run.

Cue an aforementioned big-business defender to mod me troll....

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[PeanutButterBreath]

Something about being generally savvy makes it harder for ideas like labor unions and collectivism to take root.

If you think that reading Slashdot promotes general savvy, I have a specious worldview to sell you.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[Ironica]

[1] The Daily Show. Definitely not trying to be "real news," but always good for a laugh when they catch Fox News doing something blatantly dishonest and stupid.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[rohan972]

...when it comes to genuinely smart people, they tend to be what Americans label as "liberal", and the rest of the world would call centrists or centre-left. There are intelligent people who are on the right, but they tend to use their smarts for business or personal gain, and as they benefit from their actions they fail to acknowledge the downsides of their actions. No doubt they recognise the downsides, but admitting it would probably be a death sentence for them or the businesses they run.

The policies of the left centre around collective control, that control being exercised by the educated. The genuinely smart liberals stand to benefit from their proposed policies every bit as much as the intelligent people on the right.

Nevertheless, wealth and education both tend to naturally increase the opportunity for the possessor, regardless of politics (unless you get a Pol Pot going around executing the rich and educated). Personally, I don't think the conservative/liberal dichotomy is an issue of intelligence so much as it is an issue of values, particularly perception of risk. As an example, I prefer the independence of being a contractor rather than the subservience of being an employee. Others prefer the lowered risk of being an employee. That doesn't mean I think an employee has to be unintelligent, but it seems to me that business owners and contractors tend towards more conservative politics, employees to more liberal politics.

Compulsory schooling and widespread employment (as contrasted to self-employment) ensure that a large proportion of the population are accustomed to living under someone else's orders. Possibly as a result, they are more comfortable with social solutions implemented by compulsion, such as nationalised health care. Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but as a conservative, I favour a system that promotes personal business ownership over large corporations for two main reasons: one, as you say, big corporations often screw the people and two, too many big corporations means a shift towards left wing compulsion politics due to the higher proportion of employees in the population.

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[tie_guy_matt]

The Huffington Post and Salon have news with liberal commentary. The problem here is that the news is based on reality and facts. As Stephen Cobert pointed out (at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner,) reality and facts have a well known liberal bias. So you see it is difficult to have a fact and reality based site based on facts and reality without it being liberally biased. I supposed you could just make stuff up like Fox news does. Then you would have a "fair and balanced" site full of utter BS. Hmmm I wonder why that guy who keeps identifying republicans who have affairs as democrats hasn't been fired yet?

Re:What news sites is it showing up on?

[Attila Dimedici]

How about we try a quote of longer standing, "If you are young and conservative, you have no heart. If you are old and liberal, you have no brain."

Real News?

[Bigby]

What site brings real news? (except Slashdot, of course)

Re:Real News?

[fiannaFailMan]

What site brings real news? (except Slashdot, of course)

news.bbc.co.uk

www.channel4.com/news

www.economist.com - A good place to go if you want to see the news before it happens

We are all traveling...

[wrekd]

We are all traveling on the disinformation superhighway.

Fake news site

[MyLongNickName]

I got redirected to an obviously fake news site.

Re:Fake news site

[Attack DAWWG]

With an obviously fake editor.

Re:Fake news site

[Rude Turnip]

It goes deeper than that. Some of the users' signatures are actually ads in disguise!

Re:Fake news site

[Ironica]

+1 Self-referential.

Old news.

[SatanicPuppy]

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.

Re:Old news.

[AvitarX]

Newsweek would run special paid reports about device to improve fuel efficiency (think it used a magnet to atomize the fuel or some such).

I was quite shocked they would allow something that looked like a real article to soil their pages (I mean it was way out there).

Re:Old news.

[SatanicPuppy]

Yea, in the last 10 years or so that stuff has started cropping up in more and more respectable publications. When you see one in the New York Times, you'll know the end is nigh.

What can you do? Full page ad money is huge, and they need the money badly. They justify it to themselves with the little banners on the top telling people it's an ad, but the point is obviously to mislead people, and it almost certainly works because they keep paying for it. What a way to whore your credibility...I mean who gives a crap about the "credibility" of the Huff or Salon, but the print pubs don't have much BESIDES their credibility.

Lot of newspaper people also view the stupid sticky notes on the front page as being on the same level of intrusiveness, but at least nobody thinks those are true

Re:Old news.

[SomeJoel]

Sports Illustrated sometimes runs paid articles (that are marked as Paid Advertisements). I'm sure other magazines do as well.

Re:Old news.

[Abreu]

Fake newscasts are the reason I no longer watch the news on TV... And since Radio news is a refuge of the rightwing wackos (at least where I live), I am left with newspapers and the internet. ...so visiting newspaper's websites (with adblock plus) is the best compromise for me

Re:Old news.

[DriedClexler]

Yeah, and back in 2004, some anti-Bush spammers bought long ads on CBS deliberately designed to look like real CBS news, even including a doctored video made to look like Dan Rather presenting documents proving Bush skipped out on his National Guard service.

What's funny is, they didn't even bother to make the documents look realistic.

Why CBS even approved the "ads", I have no idea.

Re:Old news.

[geekoid]

cite.

Re:Old news.

[badboy_tw2002]

I think your browser isn't parsing sarcasm tags correctly.

Re:You almost got me...

[Freetardo Jones]

You thought something posted by kdawson was a real article? You must be new here.

Barnum

[Deadstick]

the never-ending quest to prove P. T. Barnum's adage

I'll give the author a pass on the libelous misattribution, and just point out that Barnum did not take your savings or your mom's Social Security check. He promoted a lot of hokum, but he took your fifty cents and sent you home satisfied.

And he brought us Jenny Lind...

rj

Re:Barnum

[fiannaFailMan]

I'll give the author a pass on the libelous misattribution,

You can't libel the dead.

Re:Barnum

[Beat The Odds]

the never-ending quest to prove P. T. Barnum's adage I'll give the author a pass on the libelous misattribution, and just point out that Barnum did not take your savings or your mom's Social Security check. He promoted a lot of hokum, but he took your fifty cents and sent you home satisfied.

I think that you're a little confused. The adage that was being referred to is the famous quote: "There's a sucker born every minute."
Whether he actually said it is another matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_minute/

Re:Barnum

[Deadstick]

That is exactly the adage I was talking about.

rj

Re:Barnum

[Deadstick]

The misattribution occurred during his lifetime.

rj

they are even moding the story for other countries

[petermgreen]

I get

"Mary, a mother from Crowborough, E2 is thriving"

Re:Yeah, they're all claiming Michael Jackson died

[Abreu]

And we all know he's undead... Like in the movie Death Becomes Her, Jacko has been touching himself up with latex and paint for years...

Here is how it works

[Anonymous Coward]

For those wondering how these advertisers make money here is the basic rundown.

1. They pitch you the product with a news site as mentioned above or a flog (fake blog) posing as a midwestern housewife giving a legitmate review of the product. Unauthorized endorsements by Ophrah and Barbra Walters are also popular.

2. Rebills, you pay the $2.00 you think it costs to buy the product. Turns out that's only for the 15 day free trial and so they can get your credit card. If you don't call them and cancel within that time they will charge another $100/month or so to get the product shipped to your house ever month. They bury this fact in a page long terms and conditions no one ever reads.

3. Acai, Resveratrol, Colon Cleanse, bizops (get rich quick), Google Money Tree and the like are popular products.

4. Most of the people doing this aren't big companies, but affiliate marketers who get a substantial cut every time they refer a sale.

5. Thankfully the FTC and state attorney generals are trying to crack down on this sort of thing.

Re:Here is how it works

[TheRealMindChild]

5. Thankfully the FTC and state attorney generals are trying to crack down on this sort of thing.

Are they? Why am I still seeing advertisements for Enzyte? They may cancel your "order" appropriately now, since owned by someone else now, but they still do exactly what you described... along with many others. It is not just on the Internet, it is on your TV. It is in your radio. It honestly seems like no one really gives a shit.

Re:Here is how it works

[swb]

I think some of the smarter scammers have realized that they can take the $2 come-on and the $100 initial renewal essentially forever with no government interference if they are prompt and responsive about canceling subscriptions after that.

It's the scammers who think they can get away with the $2 and many months of the $100 renewals that seem to bring in the government, eventually.

But remember, the scammers alone aren't making money on this. Banks, merchant account providers, etc. all make a cut and work against making these kinds of scams harder to pull off.

This isn't news....

[Darkness404]

This isn't much news, there are ads over most of my local stations with fake "self improvement" guides. My favorite was an ad that said "Hurricane season is near, are you prepared?", this ad was on a midwestern news station. Quite funny.

I always assumed "NewsMax" was fake

[gestalt_n_pepper]

And it is. It's run by an evangelical theo-conservative crazy. The fact is, any news organization owned by a large corporation is basically fake. You get the corporate view. Fox "news" and "CNN" are just mouthpieces for this. Both are politically themed amusement for the rubes. For real news, let a thousand relatively uncensored blogs bloom.

Re:I always assumed "NewsMax" was fake

[geekoid]

"You get the corporate view. "
No, it depends. Fox is highly biased. Even in the wording of the actual stories. (I also know it happens ine diting when choosing who to air. And the Type of person the decided to interview on the spot).

CNN isn't nearly as bad. They also usually say when there information is weak.

"For real news, let a thousand relatively uncensored blogs bloom."

No, many blogs don't do any fact checking and most are far more biased then anything on the air.

Re:I always assumed "NewsMax" was fake

[fiannaFailMan]

For real news, let a thousand relatively uncensored blogs bloom.

"Real news" involves professional reporters, investigative journalists, phone calls, interviews, and a strict editorial process that vets anything before it goes live.

Blogging involves leeching off the above with the commands Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v and frequently adds nothing more but spin.

Re:I always assumed "NewsMax" was fake

[gestalt_n_pepper]

But the biases cancel out. I'm aware that fact checking doesn't always happen. It doesn't on network news either. Remember Dan Rather?

Re:I always assumed "NewsMax" was fake

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Like Dan Rather?

Obama Forum

[Elwar123]

I read about these fake news sites on The Obama Forum and they said that Obama will be censoring those websites very soon.

Re:Obama Forum

[Elwar123]

It's funnier if you check out the website... hint* It has something to do with the fake news website article

Obligatory

[aztektum]

I got redirected to an obviously fake news site.

Fixed

Served by Pulse 360

[ntsucks]

For your amusement, here is another one that is running: http://the-daily-tribune.com/breaking/13/?t202id=4693&t202kw=6417707

I see a ton of these ads served by a company called Pulse 360.

Re:Served by Pulse 360

[amoeba1911]

First of all, the crap at the end of that link is bullshit to make it look like a real news site. The whole domain has only one breaking news posted on it, so you can go to http://the-daily-tribune.com/ to see the breaking news.

But I went there and the page is titled "The Mason DAILY TRIBUNE" and the story is about Mary, a mother from Mason, OH... and here's the funny thing, I am connected through an ISP in Mason, OH. If I had an IQ of a cell phone totting minivan driving soccer mom, I'd say "OMG that's totally where I'm from! Mary can do it, so can I! I am so totally gonna give this a try!" But instead I change my proxy, and reload the page, and guess what? Now it's the "The Pennington DAILY TRIBUNE" and the story is about Mary, a mother from San Jose, CA.

They take the "relate to your readers" to a whole new level. I wish real news sites like CNN would do that too:
"A deadly car bombing in [your town] during the early hours of [today's date] killed 42 people and injured hundreds more in a crowded [strip mall/mosque/church/market]."... that's news nobody would want to miss!

You know how I know it's fake?

[Anonymous Coward]

The comments down at the bottom are all spelled correctly and using proper grammer.

Re:You know how I know it's fake?

[colinrichardday]

Well, Slashdot is safe on that count.

"ideas like effective government action"

[smittyoneeach]

Wow, that beats "vegan haggis" for oxymoron of the day.

Re:"ideas like effective government action"

[Red Flayer]

And your post, while funny, serves to illuminate my point very clearly.

For some reason you choose not to explore the possibility of effective government action, which I can chalk up to several possible reasons:

(1) Focus on examples of ineffective government action
(2) Knee-jerk reaction due to preconceptions you have chosen not to challenge
(3) Inability to accurately analyze examples of effective government action
(4) Willful disregard of counter-examples to your beliefs.

I'm sure there are other possible reasons. But it amuses me greatly that your response to my post, while possibly intended to refute it, instead serves as a perfect example of my point.

It's nothing against you personally... I find you to be one of the funnier slashdotters around... I just think that you would personally benefit from applying your wits to potentials you choose not to consider.

Re:"ideas like effective government action"

[smittyoneeach]

Oversimplifying somewhat, I think of the public sector as userspace, and the government as kernel space.
The reason OS kernels work is that the kernel/user space divide is strictly enforced.
Conversely, conflation of the two is actively killing us.
Your criticism is fair: communicating detailed ideas via /. ransom notes is absurd.
But if I wasn't laughing, I'd be doing something unspeakable.
Exit question: is passing non-existent legislation any more sober?

Re:Yeah, they're all claiming Michael Jackson died

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure he had been touching himself with latex, but not in the manner in which you stated...

Oh Come On

[castorvx]

Fox has to get traffic somehow.

Re:Oh Come On

[Mashiki]

They do? CNN and ABC better do a story on that pronto.

Re:Oh Come On

[NotBornYesterday]

Ahem, you might want to RTFS ... Salon and HuffPo were the ones caught serving this crap. Arianna is gonna slap the hell out of you for confusing her site with Fox.

Since when

[Anonymous Coward]

is The Huffington Post consider a "news" site?

If I want to listen to idiots foaming at the mouth and blaming all the world's problems on a President who's been out of office for almost six months, I'll turn on MSNBC.

A fake twitter user to plug this scam

[juniorkindergarten]

Someone used my Gmail address to create a Twitter account to pump a google links get rich quick scam.
I hadn't checked my Gmail for a few weeks and in that time someone used my email address to set up a twitter account. I had tons of tweets from strangers in my inbox. Some dude from wisconson was running some get rich quick scam with google links. I had never signed up for a twitter account so I decided to take it away from the scammer..

Voila, down goes one scammer/spammer and a twitter account for me to boot....not that I couldn't have got one anyways.... Now to figure out how to get rid of the fake followers......suggestions?

Wishing Well And Such

[tholomyes]

"Sometimes the thing that you think isn't a scam, is a scam, and the thing that you think is a scam, isn't a scam at all. And sometimes that, itself, is the scam! So as you can see, things can be pretty tricky out there for consumers."

"And for reporters!"

Websites responsible for Ads?

[HockeyPuck]

When will websites be responsible for the content of their ads? I'm sure that most of these sites have no idea what ad at any one time will appear in a given box.

Re:Websites responsible for Ads?

[reginaldo]

Generally larger websites have an entire department dedicated to selling adspace and managing the ad content that is displayed. Since it is the primary source of revenue for websites, it is hard for me to believe that they don't know what they are advertising.

Mom's commercially-viable wisdom

[MattGWU]

Has anybody else noticed the use of moms in banner ads?

From one site alone, I'm given to understand that a mom has discovered the secret to weight loss, a startling new method of teeth whitening, and revealed to us the miracle of the a'cai berry. I guess this is why Obama wants them to return to college (online college, naturally).

What gives? Targeting a new market? Playing off the old 'mom knows best'? An extension of the old advertising strategy where the man is an idiot but his wife has all the answers?

Pot, meet kettle

[PopeRatzo]

What's funny about this story is that it's Wired dot com that's complaining about "phony news stories" that are really advertisements.

8 out of 10 stories on Wired dot com are little more than advertisements. I started counting the stories that appeared there in the last few months alone: Let's see, we had a story about how the iPhone was going to transform the video game industry. Another one about how the iPhone was going to transform personal communications (because it now had a movie camera), how the iPhone was going to transform the way people bought software, how the iPhone was going to transform art (no kidding!) and how the iPhone was certainly transforming travel and navigation (GPS!!!).

That's not counting the countless stories leading up to the announcement of the new iPhone models, how much better the iPhone was than the Pre (I guess Palm didn't have quite the advertising budget of Wired dot com) and even a couple of stories about new patches for the iPhone.

And now, a breaking story about news web sites that have stories that are really advertisements and how that was going to destroy journalism.

Next we'll get a cover story in Wired magazine about how glossy paper is bad for the environment. Conde Nast has no shame.

Real News Sites?

[DustoneGT]

What real news sites?

Google and Slashdot Should Crack Down

[tomhudson]

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.

Actually the spammers have already started that

[billstewart]

Haven't got my first one of them yet, but the news reports have been saying that Twitter, Youtube, and ITunes have been getting swamped with Jacko traffic, and spammers have already started firing out scams, probably "Click here to install the video player so you can see Michael Jackson video" etc.

Re:Actually the spammers have already started that

[cheftw]

Thanks for the info, just started this 3 weeks ago. I've gotten 2 checks for a total of $1900, pretty cooll.

Troll mod? Really?

[Red Flayer]

Troll mod for me, and not for the blatantly obvious troll of the parent?

I guess the OP in the thread was right... the conservatives have mod points, and they are not afraid to use them inappropriately.

Or maybe I pissed off some liberals, too.

That's my problem, really... I'm an equal opportunity troll[1]. I somehow always manage to piss off the libtards AND the conservidiots in the same post.

Or I manage to bash Apple, Linux, AND MS in a MS-bashing thread.

[sigh]

[1] And now I'm sure I've gone and pissed off the partisan conservative nutjobs again, by taking good trolls away from hard-working blue-collar down-home folks and giving them to minorities who are less qualified.

Kinda funny if you live someplace remote...

[keysdisease]

It was pretty easy for me to spot these... cause I live the FL Keys and they tagged everything with Key West.... mom, internet entrepreneur, teeth whitening, etc. Except for moms, we don't have any of those... especially white teeth...

Re:Slashdot statism strikes again.

[swb]

The problem is, fraud is generally more about a one-time theft than duping you into buying inferior goods. When the snake-oil salesman came to town selling his potions, he promised they would work if you took them for 7 days, but he made sure to leave after about 5 days. He didn't care about selling you the same potion over and over, he only needed to sell it to you ONCE.

You're right that market forces will eventually hurt the sellers of inferior goods, but that's not the kind of "fraud" that's most common.

Re:Troll mod? Really?

[ColdWetDog]

That's my problem, really... I'm an equal opportunity troll[1]. I somehow always manage to piss off the libtards AND the conservidiots in the same post.

Hey! You forgot us scientologists. Xenu Rocks!

Re:Well, there goes your karma

[Ironica]

You get mod points for having good karma. Believe me, not a whole lot of people on here who think they are intelligent and are also defending conservative dogma have a lot of mod points.

(Me, on the other hand, I get mod points every couple weeks if I don't use them; every few days if I do. It's kinda weird.)

Re:they are even moding the story for other countr

[pcgabe]

My Mary isn't from anywhere. I guess it doesn't work if you have NoScript.