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Facebook, Washington State Sue Firm Over Clickjacking

Posted by timothy on from the just-trying-to-earn-a-living dept.

Trailrunner7 writes "Facebook and the state of Washington are suing an ad network they accuse of encouraging people to spread spam through clickjacking schemes and other tactics. The company at the center of the allegations, Adscend Media, denies the charges and said it will fight them vigorously. According to the office of Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, the company paid and encouraged scammers to design Facebook pages to bait users into visiting Websites that pay the company. The bait pages would appear in posts that seem to originate from a person's Facebook friends and offer visitors an opportunity to view 'provocative' content in exchange for clicking the 'like' button on the Facebook page."

5 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Incentivized likes by sakdoctor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Facebook is designed to spread SHIT as a core feature; it's a spam machine.
    Are you really saying there is a distinction between good and evil "likes"?

    1. Re:Incentivized likes by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 4, Insightful

      NASCAR at least has a significant number of fans who appreciate it because they have background knowledge in auto mechanics and racing. To the average layman, it's a bunch of fat rednecks watching cars drive in circles, waiting for the next crash. But the truth is that a good number of those "laymen" fans are taking into account a multitude of background knowledge like bore, stroke, gear ratios, camber, statistics, power/weight ratio, turbocharging, supercharging, etc; all of which add tremendously to the experience.

      You know that feeling yourself when you try to mouth off the specs of your computer or WoW character to somebody who doesn't know or care.

      Facebook, on the other hand, is not itself interesting, even to most technically inclined folks. The only people who care about its technical internals or operation are its employees. Everybody else just uses it for attention and circle-jerking.

  2. Who Watches the Coastguard? by dangitman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The irony is thick with this one.

    "Social Media" is basically designed to be click-bait. That's the only way they can recoup the investment money from the Venture Capitalists.

    Sure, they might all start out being about "connecting and sharing with your friends" but then they hit critical mass and have to make some money. So they turn into whoring advertising machines. No longer are you just following your friends, but you're suckered into following companies, so you can win tickets to a Lady Gaga concert.

    Now they complain about "clickjacking"?

    Fuck "social media", and fuck Slashdot for putting goddamned Facebook and Twitter links under every fucking post.

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
    1. Re:Who Watches the Coastguard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just like when the 60's generation got into power and made the drug laws much more sensible since they knew that smoking a little weed was no big deal.

  3. Re:Why is the state proxying for private interest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Probably because Washington state has anti-spam laws on the books, hence the people of Washington state (or ... at least the politicians in WA were paid to) believe that there is a public interest in attacking spammers. Thus... it is not defending a corporation nor is it in proxy for Facebook's interests. They are seperate actions and Adscend must defend themselves in both cases, rather than singly if Facebook and WA were cooperating on one suit.