ScamVille Lawsuit: Facebook, MySpace, Zynga And More Face Possible Class Action | Hacker News Reader

ScamVille Lawsuit: Facebook, MySpace, Zynga And More Face Possible Class Action

techcrunch.com

28 pointsvaksel11 comments

why is nobody talking about the fact that google adsense runs the exact same scam ads? they even run on techcrunch, twitpic, mashable and many other "reputable" websites.

Google makes ungodly amounts of money off scams.

One of the main Videolan project devs told me recently that their update tool stats show that 15% of all VLC builds downloaded are from scam sites--sites that charge money for VLC or include spyware in the installation, and promote themselves using Google Ads. Google refuses to stop serving ads on the keyword and it's impossible to go after the sites legally (they're all based in Russia or whatnot, whack-a-mole and all that).

Now consider the fact that there were 80 million VLC downloads in the period after the 1.0 release. And OpenOffice apparently has the problem even worse.

It's really quite sickening the way that AdSense profits off these sorts of scams.

Aaron Wall bangs this drum all the time, but I suppose most people write it off as "Bah, he's an SEO." (Possible conflict of interest note: I moderate on his forum.)

See, for example, here:

http://www.seobook.com/danny-sullivan-highlights-googles-2-t...

Google AdWords has a policy against "Negative option or unclear billing practices". There is also a section on "Support advertised prices, discounts, and free offers."

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?page=guid...

I'm going to assume that Scamville offers would fall under one of those categories. Hard to say without actual legal precedent.

"Google AdWords has a policy" ... but the problem is policies which are loosely enforced may as well not exist.

Google was quick to point out their policies to the FTC on the scammy government grant ads, and yet months later Google was running the very same scam ads http://www.seobook.com/buying-links-vs-buying-rankings

some more background on Google's ads http://www.benedelman.org/ppc-scams/ http://www.seobook.com/how-make-easy-money-google

Because people are stupid and Facebook gets thousands of page hits by the same people daily, generally by morons who barely got past typing "face book" into google. Techcrunch users have likely been around on the internet for a long time and know these things are scams without being ripped off.

There's thousands of warnings about spam scams and phishers, everyone who read techcrunch or similar sites likely knew they were scams on the first email they ever received of the nature.

Am I misunderstanding that video, or is Pincus admitting to distributing malware and spam? On camera? In front of an audience?

Do these guys have legal advisers, or are they just winging it?

That's a serious question by the way, I am not trying to be a smart ass. Aren't there lawyers that tell them hey, you are not allowed to distribute even solicited malware?

As an aside, about 8 months ago I was party to a conversation on the subject of investing in a Facebook social gaming company. One of the investors made a snide comment that I didn't really understand at the time. He said he'd save his money to invest in an internet company that was in a more respectable industry . . . like porn.

This guy is in a fairly conservative investing circle, so you can imagine what a damning comment that was. I'm starting to get an idea of the research that led him to that conclusion.

If the Zwinky toolbar is "malware and spam" then IAC should be more worried than Zynga.

If the Internet is to be cleaned up, then this is the way to go. You can't crack down on file sharing and turn a blind eye to these types of scammers. And the "wild west" days of the net are numbered, for better or worse.

The internet is becoming a market place, that's been accepted for a long time. Rules and regulations don't follow far behind in any market, either they're imposed by a seller consortium or by a government.

These rules usually cause problems to innovation in one way or another (usually by increasing the cost to enter the market), however they inevitably end up appearing.

Personally I'm unsure if they'll be for better or worse, but ultimately I see it as inevitable. Although I also believe they'll likely only ever be applied to large companies, so there will always be potential for scams just as organized crime manages to money launder through legitimate small businesses, there'll be many shady things performed with small online companies.

I hope that this type of action will serve to clean up the web in general. Overall, protecting consumers is a great thing.

This case seems easy because these are real companies committing the fraud, not random Russians who populate a lot of spam.

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