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

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.

"ideas like effective government action"

[smittyoneeach]

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