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posted by Horace Rumpole on May 17, 2012 - 43 comments

The Wall Street Journal's What They Know blog is charged with determining what information marketers are capable of learning about internet users through tracking technology. This weekend, they took aim at Facebook, after their investigation discovered that many popular apps on the social-networking site, including those by Zynga, have been transmitting identifying information in the form of User ID's to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, even if a user has enabled strict privacy settings. Additional analysis. Response post on Facebook's Developer Blog. Forbes' blogger Kashmir Hill asks if the WSJ is overreacting, and Techcrunch notes that the severity and risks of UID transferral are still being debated.
posted by zarq on Oct 18, 2010 - 56 comments

Magpie wants to roost in your twitter feed. (via Jon Lebkowsky , who has an opinion)
posted by Pants! on Apr 11, 2009 - 40 comments

What News Corp doesn't want you to know about myspace is that the much of the success of myspace was due to a large successful advertising campaign and it wasn't grass roots at all. They also don't want you to know that Tom Anderson didn't really create the site and that it is more spam 2.0 than anything else. The article is written by a 19 year old web journalist called Trent Lapinski. Has everyone just been had? Does it matter? (via Digg and Valleywag)
posted by sien on Sep 11, 2006 - 92 comments

Russian spammer beaten to death.
posted by mono blanco on Jul 26, 2005 - 35 comments

"I just read about CNN Headline News in us weekly. Those guys at the football game were total jerks." --Thoth
posted by jca on Apr 25, 2005 - 42 comments

Not only is pop star Ashlee Simpson lip syncing and manufactured, but so are some of her fans:
"I just read about Ashlee in us weekly. Those guys at the football game were total jerks." -- mandyc19

Welcome to the world of message forum viral marketing, "street team" advertising, and corporate shills. That "fan" posting in forums about Court TV, The Smoking Gun, or shows on Fox isn't a fan at all -- just another type of spammer -- only this time employed by giant media corporations.
posted by jca on Jan 25, 2005 - 85 comments

The Puma "French Pleasure" Campaign: Hoax From felixsalmon.com. via the AdCritic daily newsletter [Gawker AdRants got there first, however, on a tip from MemeFirst], comes a meme-hacking story straight from the Anarchist's Cookbook chapter on propaganda of the semiotic deed: the infamous Puma viral-marketing scam. It was Tim who got the official statement from the marketing geeks:

It has been brought to our attention that several unauthorized, sexually suggestive advertisements portraying the PUMA brand have been released over the Internet. We are appalled that images like these would be created and distributed under the PUMA name. As a brand, we seek to take a unique perspective toward our advertising in an effort to challenge the boundaries of our industry; however we would never consider using these tactics. We are in the process of researching the circumstances and reserve any legal steps available.

posted by hairyeyeball on Mar 14, 2003 - 70 comments

There's a reason why you've been getting those 'RapeMaster' spam ads although we're not sure why, but alot of weird stuff is popping up in spam. I could live without ads for 'farmer girl on cow' sites.

To heck with thinking this out, it's obviously a massive conspiracy involving the Government, Government Ops, Ariel Sharon, the CIA, the Queen of England, Mothers who post bikini pics for pedophiles, Wired.com, Capitol Hill Blue and other forms of media to discredit the Internet while using the Internet to do it.

Anyways, what sorts of weird 'GovOps' spam are you getting in your mailboxes?
posted by RobbieFal on Sep 30, 2002 - 10 comments

Judge orders VeriSign to stop ad campaign A U.S. court on Tuesday ordered Internet naming giant VeriSign Inc. to immediately cease a direct-mail campaign that used what a rival called deceptive advertising to poach its customers. A development in an earlier posted story.
posted by timeistight on May 16, 2002 - 7 comments

Verisign sued for false advertising. Domain registrar VeriSign has been mailing out thousands of "domain name expiration" notices that imply that domain-name owners could lose control of their name if they don't return the form (as noted previously on MeFi), and BulkRegister has filed suit in federal court. No lawsuits on that that other matter yet, but is the fall of Verisign impending?
posted by gleuschk on May 13, 2002 - 19 comments

Ironic Spam article Does anyone find it ironic that a NY Times article on the horrors of spam is accompanied by one of those ads that automatically plays annoying music and requires you to find and then click on the off switch every time the page loads?
posted by Poagao on Dec 23, 2001 - 8 comments

Psycho ex-girlfriend is a hoax! Looking at the code, I could see that it would sleep for a while, then start popping ad windows. Because of the delay, people would not associate the advertising with PsychoEx - the countdown starts only when you leave the page. and registered at anystreet, Dallas TX phone number 214.555.1212
posted by igloo on Mar 30, 2001 - 14 comments

What Would This Do To the 'Net? Would such legislation be Constitutional?
posted by ParisParamus on Mar 28, 2001 - 13 comments

We're all doomed. You think the spam level is bad now, just wait.
posted by Steven Den Beste on May 16, 2000 - 7 comments

I hate telemarketing calls. I've done a number of things to amuse myself in the process of dealing with such calls but that doesn't stop them. Here's how to cut down the calls you receive.
posted by plinth on Apr 10, 2000 - 19 comments

I have seen the future of advertising, and it is PP * blog. My ultra-top-secret advertising scheme is finally let out of the box. Okay, so it might not be the future of advertising, but it IS a sleezy scheme on my part to help get both me AND you more visibility in the weblog dept.
posted by premiumpolar on Mar 21, 2000 - 8 comments