@"Usetobeajournalist"
It doesn't matter whether or not he bought the products or whether they work. The fact of the matter is those advertising companies are using blatant misinformation and lies to misinform and deceive potential customers.

While I realise that the advertising industry as a whole seems to be based on such principles, we should still try to prevent the use of such advertising techniques wherever possible.

Yes the people who believe in such easily falsifiable testimonials without doing any of their own research to verify such claims are silly but that doesn't mean that these methods these ads use are ethical methods.

If the products work as stated then let independent individuals put up true testimonials and if the so called "testimonials" are created by an ad agency that ad agency should mark such testimonials as part of an advert. Google ads are clearly marked as ads and if they aren't then that's another problem that should also be dealt with.

Just as when Sony fabricated movie reviews and published them using the "invented" movie critic David Manning the AD Agencies involved should pay huge fines.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4741259.stm

Hey UsedToBeAJournalist,
You are an idiot. If you are gullible enough to believe that specious advertisements are allowable and good, then please support them fully with your credit cards and purchases.

I am saddened that you think, after all the time websurfers are spending, they don't need some kind of assistance in blocking the tons of nuisance ads for crazy and unbelievable products shown around the net.

Should people make money? Sure, but let's look at legitimate ways and actual products and services that work instead of being scams.

Let us know how that teeth-whitening, insurance-cost reduction works out for you while drinking all that acai berry.

Your article is completely one sided. You say these specific ads and the products advertised are scams...did you order a single one of them? Did the Google work at home kit arrive as advertised; did you try it as advertised? Did the teeth whitening kit arrive; did they make your smile brighter? Did you buy the berry diet drink? Did it help you lose weight? How long did you try these things, who else tried them, did it work for them and not you? Since you didn’t bother to order any of the products or interview anyone that has, we don’t know anything. It’s all your speculation and possibly slander. I didn’t see a single customer complaint either…not a single one. So who’s been scammed here? Anyone we can find or no one at all? You blame ad networks...but I see more Ads for diets, colon cleansers and teeth whitening on Google than anywhere else. Just search acai berry diet on Google and click the first sponsored link…is that a real blog? There are also more links to “fake blogs” in Google’s results then stars in the sky but you blame 3 ad networks? But all of that doesn’t matter because so far I haven’t read even a single person being scammed. So why are these ads bad again? Maybe we should have more refinance dancing women ads, punch the money ads or win a free ipod ads because those are so much better. So in review, we have no products purchased to back up your assertions, not one single customer complaint and a big bad wolf that isn’t the biggest or the baddest by a long shot. But that’s journalism… I mean blogging in 2009. And not one of your commenter’s seems to notice the vast holes on your story. Critical thinking has truly left the building.

A few ways to spot fake advertising for product scams: (but beware, as these scammers come out with new stuff all the time, as soon as they are figured out!!)

1 - Be cautious of any blogs advertising products where you cannot leave a comment.
2 - Read all the fine print and be sure you are not signing up for a great deal only to be scammed into a continuity program or larger payment in a few weeks. Good companies will make it obvious and clear (while providing detailed information and benefits) if they have a continuity program as part of their offer.
3 - If you are leary of using your credit card online, pay via Paypal or use a pre-paid credit card (with a very low balance) with enough to pay for your purchase.
4 - Google the name of the website to see if anyone has reported it as a scam previously.
5 - Don't get excited when seeing testimonials all from your town! This is one way scammers get you and is deceitful. Be sure there are a variety of testimonials from various locations and some should have websites listed too for the person giving the testimonial to future prove the validity of the person (this is especially true in internet marketing fields but not so much other areas such as losing weight, etc.)
6 - Use common sense. If it looks to good to be true and promises the world, it probably is!
7 - The main areas where scammers prey (so you need to be extra careful to make good choices): diet, weight loss, acai, male enhancement, gambling, make money at home)

Hope that helps!
http://www.JennSpencer.com

The problem is not the ads, it's the pop-ups they come in on. There is no way you can block them even with the most aggresive pop-up blocker. I have Norton Internet Security, and Norton Utilities,with Norton antivirus, and they don't help. I even called Norton support and they wouldn't help either, they wanted to sell me a $100 virus scan.

First, I'd like to start a movement to end the usage of fake words such as "flog", "flakeosphere", "adosphere" or whatever "hip" term we use to describe these scams.

Second, these are usually scams because they (once again) prey on people's greed. Hmm... let's see... someone is advertising a system where you can make $2,000 a day by sitting on your couch. It's almost 2010 and people are STILL falling for "no work, get rich-quick schemes"!

Third, the sub-sub-sub-contracting of advertising services makes it very easy to pass the blame: this site blames MSNBC for proving the ad, who can blame the service they hired who can blame the sub-contractor who can blame... and on and on, with no one actually admitting that they were the ones who allowed the deceptive advertising.
Is this greed on the part of everyone in the chain? If this site complains about the advertiser, then the advertiser will stop spending money here, and so on down the chain. Everyone is afraid of offending someone else out of fear they'll lose advertising revenue.

So, expect to see more of these deceptive ads as legitimate advertisers cut back on advertising.

Fake web pages? Heck, half of the "news" is VPNs (paid ads.) Rule to live by; if it comes at you out of a lighted box, it's a lie.

Every ad is a scam, no exceptions. Believe any of them at your own peril. This is how we must treat the internet.

Well said..

Shelly Smith

LMAO LMAO ... the people who fall for this stuff deserve what they get ! And don't give me the "oh poor me routine" .. STUPIDITY is cureable .."just say NO"..!

I'm sure the FTC will be as proficient and expeditious in handling the fakeosphere as the SEC was in handling Bernie Madoff.

I feel into one of these scames for making mon at home I had to pay for the package to sho you how. I was a little weary so I bought a pre-paid credit card instead of using my bank card and paid for the package and now 4 monthes later i cant get in touch with anyone nor have I recieved a package of any sort from them. I hate companys or fake people who do this! Its sad!

I hope someone at MSN, Microsoft etc actually reads this. I used to have MSN as my home page. No more. Now it is Google. Those popup ads are the reason. Not because of the content, but because the load time of those ads, and the persistence of bad links that take forever, if ever, to load, is ridiculous. This is not NetZero. MSN is not free. I pay for an MSN subscription, and I pay for a mobile internet access account, so I do not expect to be inundated with ads, when I paid for the service, nor do I expect to be paying bandwidth and time charges to load their ads, especially when the ads take too long and too much bandwidth. I am not subsidizing their waste of my time and resources. MSN needs to make it very easy for me to cancel past the load of all ads. It sure was easy to change the home page.

You can start by turning on your pop up blocker

These ads also target by IP Address, then tailor the "testimonials" as if they are coming from local people. When I looked into the validity of the person from my town crowing about acai berries and their weight loss properties. Of course t here was no one in my town. This particular manipulation is important for people to be aware of and a point I believe the article missed. Otherwise, spot-on!

One way to spot these types of ads is to read the fine print when you finally get to the "sales" site. For example, if the company selling the item or service is based in Utah, beware. Utah has state laws extremely favorable to internet marketers such as these, so much so that I simply don't even bother to read an internet ad if the fine print says that the company offering the service or item is based in Utah.

There is one of these on now about teeth whitening. They call it Bright White and several other names. Its on Yahoo page and others. They have a free trial offer for about a dollar or two and then when you don't cancel it (they don't tell you about canceling} they charge 92.00 and 80.00 for one small tube of whitener. Its a rip=off and I hope everyone reads this.

You must be kidding, If you can,t check the ads that appear on your news site for honesty and integrity why should we trust any thing on your news broadcasts? It seems it would be job one for a news originization to check all the facts.

This is a fake one that has been around for awhile:
http://www.vitalhealthpartners.com/reviews-index/
No matter what exercise program from P90x to every supplement Avesil appears to be the "Top Choice for 2009"

Can these be reported somewhere in effort to rid the web of these losers?

Seriously, who really thinks that people saying how much money they "make on Google" every month is real? This is no different than the "Make Money With the Internet" infomercials on television.

Anyone who sends any money willingly for a trial period from a company they've never heard of should know the company might clean out their credit card.

These internet scammers have PT Barnum as their inspiration, and they aren't being disappointed.

The big tip off is that these forums and blogs have the comment features disabled "for spam problems"

But the problem exists becayse hosting companies like GoDaddy will not take the sites down, even when presented with proof of the fruad taking place, they won;t even take them down when the registration information is fraudulent.

GoDaddy in particular seems to be the primary source for webshosting and registration for these dirtballs.

Really? Are we all so stupid that we need Big Brother to protect us from everything we see? Come on people, wake up, be accountable for yourselves! Research, then do more research. What ever happened to 'Buyer Beware'?

We need less government in our lives, not more.

Its no different than those Radio and TV ads. The web site merely carries ads served by Google or other ad agencies and is not legally liable. This has been established many times in court, as laws specifically exempt them. If not, people could sue their e-mail provider for Nigerian scams. (They ought to protect me from my greed).

Like it or not, the consumer needs to take charge and checkout a web site before falling for it. Do not believe what you read, check first.

These bogus companies and people need to be seriously and quickly prosecuted to prevent more of these idiots from popping up. Dishonest people need serious deterrents to make them think twice about their activities!

This has been going on for years and is finally getting the attention it deserves from the FTC. Anyone who would stoop so low as to set up a fake blog, news site, or fake anything else for that matter needs to be stopped.

Advertising networks like AdBlade, AdSonar, Pulse360 supply the ads to major websites like MSNBC. MSNBC then pushes it off that these networks are responsible for the content.
Reckless greed is what got this country and the rest of the world into trouble and as stated in this article it is still going on. Why should I have to fight the companies in the ad when you steered me in their direction? You admit that MSNBC knows about this but yet the ads are still there. Automation can be a bad thing and this is a great example but then why hire a human to verify the validity of the ad when it will take away from the profit.
If I build a bridge but don't finish it, and it is a habit of my company, and someone tells another that it is okay to drive across, who is responsible for the injuries? In my opinion, everyone involved. The person that directed them across the bridge made a false statement (the ad). The builder of the bridge didn't convey the message that it was not safe(ad network). The people that hired the bridge builder didn't do enough research(major website).
MSNBC and other major sites use ad networks because it is a lot less expensive than having their own sales staff. You get what you pay for and should be responsible by the end result.
On the flip side, who are these ads targeting? Pulse360 has had ads for diet, tooth whitening, colon cleansing and washboard abs. Here is my free advertising; eat right, exercise and brush your teeth. Stop looking for the lazy cure all and put a little effort into improving your life. If you don't you will get what you deserve.

Personally, I write my own reviews on my blog, and I do accept advertising. Some companies won't advertise on my blog because I can be a bit blunt about things going on in politics. I defy anyone to prove me wrong though since my observations are based on historical facts. If I think a product or service is lousy, I'll say so. I'll even include photos of the product received. If I think one is good, I'll do the same.

I am appalled, but not surprised, by the number of Americans who blame the victims instead of the perpetrators of business frauds and who are so afraid that our governments might intervene to prevent or punish these. Perhaps these laissez-faire ideologues would feel better if they reflected that fraud is a form of theft and its prevention and punishment, therefore, a way of protecting the property rights of the consumer. In a decent society, though, such an argument would not have to be made. Americans are lied to 24/7 by experts in lying - advertisers, marketers, public relations firms, politicians, officeholders, official spokespersons, lawyers, consultants, spin doctors, purveyors of religious nonsense, etc. And a good part of the population doesn't event resent being lied to and swindled, but does resent those who object to it. Just where do Americans learn their contempt for truth if not from our political and economic system? I reserve my contempt not for those naive enough to be swindled but for those who think greed and deceit don't matter.

These things flourish because they make money. There truly is a sucker born every minute.

If people would simply maintain their common sense much of this would die off.

No one writes things like "Wow, I was totally skeptical but now I am completely convinced, I will order Fooglie's Amazing Pain-Free Earlobe Enlarger right this minute as I know I am assured with a Money-back Guarentee!"

Real people write more "Hm, OK, I'll try it..what the heck."

The juxtaposotion of this article with many such ads is merely ironic.

Funny, msnbc.com is one of the worst offenders here. Almost all the ads I see on msnbc.com link to the "fakeosphere" with fraudulent products and advertisements.

How do they hope to enforce something like "the FTC's endorsement guidelines require that any claims made by happy customers must represent "honest opinions and beliefs," and must be verifiable. "

Seriously -- buyer beware. If you take everything you read online at face value, then you deserve to be taken advantage of.

The government can't regulate the internet, because among other things, it's the WORLD wide web. People from all over the world are posting to these things, how are they to determine who is real and who isn't?

@Randy, Springfield, MA

Just scroll down to the bottom of the main page here at MSNBC.com and you will see a section called "Sponsored LInks". Every one of those is knee deep in this kind of stuff. There's that acai berry crap and whiten your teeth for free, unemployed guy with no skills makes $77/hr sponging off Google (which, by the way, Google isn't even remotely involved in), etc.

Another example of these ads is the one that says "I lost 500 pounds by obeying this one simple rule", or "to acheive a flat belly, follow this one simple rule". Anyone with an ounce of sense can tell these are a come-on. I've also seen the Rachel Ray ones too. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER click on these ads. They are all scams!

Fakeosphere doesn't roll off the tongue. I propose we call it the "bogusphere" instead.

Marc Calderwood. "farticles". You make me laugh, my friend! I should hope to find you on Comedy Central soon?

This is so simple. Anytime you are about to buy something on the web just do a search, and type something like "________ reviews". Also check bbb.org to see if there are any complaints against the company. The mail, internet, TV, any kinds of advertising can be false and misleading. The blogs remind me of the old hotel room MLM meetings with someone holding up a fake check for 1000's of dollars, that they "made" selling whatever. It may be decades later, but scams are scams.

MSNBC, you had several of these on you website. I somehow convinced myself that since it was on MSNBC it was legitimate. NOT Send for a sample for a minimum amount of money and they automatically start billing you monthly for the product. I learned my lesson and was fortunate that it didn't cost much. I just don't order off the internet unless I persue the product. Shame on you MSNBC

I rarely watch Hells Kitchen but I saw one in which Gordon Ramsey read horrific online reviews of a failing restaurant. There were only 5 and he thought it rather odd that the only POSITIVE rave review suspiciously had the same vocabulary words and spelling mistakes as on the restaurant's menu. Turns out the chef logged on and wrote it himself using a fake name. The chef saw nothing wrong with it either because it would be "good for business." If you read on the internet that your hair is on fire, dont go running into the street screaming right away until you do some investigating of your own!!

To barabbas, washington dc,

Perhaps you could point out exactly where these fakeosphere ads are on THIS website? I've searched near and far on redtape.msnbc.com and can't seem to locate them.

So...if you're going to make a accusation of this kind, at least peruse the website first or you look like a fool.. or worse.

Perhaps instead of waiting until someone reports a dubious ad, the legitimate sites should have someone responsible for checking the ads that appear on their site daily and getting the bad ones taken down - that would certainly increase the value of the legitimate ads since we could have some trust in them

I wonder if the Denver mom who lost 47 pounds knows the mom in my neighborhood who also lost 47 pounds? I think it is an amazing phenomenon sweeping Colorado and possibly neighboring states.

MSNBC is a hipocracy. The article oncerning home title thefts on MSNBC. The article was a scare tactic to purchase a membership in a web based security service. All links are broken except the membership link and the fake blg about their service - this was posted on the main page of MSNBC less than 1 hour ago!! MSNBC HAS LIABILITY promoting and receiving benefit from this crime.

This is just the beginning of the media propaganda to sway the masses into believing we need government intervention on the net, so they can control what is said on the net.

I just send them to the "Deletosphere".

Fakeosphere ??? OH, you mean websites like Politico.

The "Politico fakeosphere" has been around for a long time.

Even Politico's "terms of use agreement" that only apply to postsers from a left of center view point.

And now for the question of current gullibility.

Which is the biggest misrepresentation:

Saddam's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" or the "72 virgins" promised to Islamic terrorists?

Or does this prove that two wrongs don't make a right.

So the internet has caught up to snake oil salesmen and infomercials. Shocking! Having a confederate to play against isn't exactly a new con tactic. Not to be mean, but Greg the IT guy should have known better than to use an infected computer for ANYTHING. Good grief. Where's the companion article about how the emails you get telling you to refinance your mortgage? Don't tell me those are fake too! Fortunately the last site I went to I was lucky enough to be the 1,000,000th visitor and so my prize money should cover my other grifting losses.

And what about the fake testimonials on real blogs? I've seen any number of bogus consumer ratings and opinions extolling the virtues of products, loans, get-rich-quick-schemes, hotel reviews etc that are clearly posted by shills of the manufacturers or whomever to essentially dilute the often critical views of real consumers.

msnbc didn't post my first comment because it showed the fake advertisements on their own website.

These type of ads illustrate what got the country into the financial mess it is in.

It seems like the American people are too willing to screw any one over just to make a buck. Wall Street and the banking industry proved this all too well.

This is the single most important reason I use FireFox, with the AdBlock Plus extension. When I open msnbc.com I do not see any ads, just content. The same goes with almost all websites that I visit.

True one could argue that I am taking away revenue from the websites that I visit, but if they cannot clean up their act and continue to offer such "flog" ads than I will continue to block them.

I am not opposed to internet ads, if they are done right and with honesty they can be useful. However I glad I do not have to see these "flog" ads, or who can forget the mortgage ads from a few years ago with the mini games. And it's not like these ads are free, they are taking my bandwidth away from me. If I am on a cellular connection, it costs me money to down load these elaborate ads with dancing women, or flash games. So until the situation changes, FireFox and AdBlock Plus will be an essential part of my web browsing.

so . . . if you are going to report on this kind of crime, at least purge it from your own website or you look like hypocrites . . or worse.

The FTC needs to take a serious look at companies generating marketing leads online. They have moved into almost every service industry. Someone fills out a form thinking they are dealing directly with a mortgage company, lawyer, insurance company, etc. The reality is they are giving a marketing company their info which will sell it to as many times as possible.
The consumer will be harassed for probably the next year from companies that bought the lead.

They usually break all kinds of advertising laws related to the industry they are soliciting business from. For example get a $450,000 mortgage for $300/month fixed rate. The disclosures are usually hidden in their privacy policy.

Turn off the computer and read a book. Problem solved.

The romans said "Caveat Clicktor"
May the clicker beware!
Yes, that's true.

We see these ads on "respectable" sites like MSNBC and CNN for example, and I can't help but think they are complicit in these ad postings.

Being a sceptic of big business motives when it comes to generating revenue I can only assume that they support this kind of business. I believe that they should have the responsibility to police their own web sites and I hope the web owners are also deemed to have some responsibility for this content when the FTC comes calling.

These companies all have terms and conditions that must be read and agreed to before the payment can be processed. If you read the terms and conditions they will tell you that the free trial is only a trail and if the trial is not cancelled the company will bill you on a monthly basis. This is how they can bill month to month for their product. While I don't agree with the ethics of this, there is nothing illegal about it. Consumers need to be smart and actually read terms and conditions and investigate the product before handing over their money.

As a freelance writer, I come across jobs for writing advert campaigns of this type all the time. Visit the getafreelancer website and you will see dozens of jobs offering low pay to write hundreds of fake testimonials for fakosphere campaigns (you will also find jobs paying to clone other people's legitimate websites, set up fake craigslist accounts and many other projects which clog up the web with deceit and lies). I continually fail to understand why no one is even attempting to put a stop to this.

Funny how John from Oshkosh comments on the fake ads sounding like Fox News, ignoring the fact that he's reading this on MSNBC

My solution is very simple and 100% effective: Don't click on ANY advertisements. If at all possible, avoid even looking at them. Legal or not, they all have the same goal in mind: getting you to give them your money. Manipulative and intrusive ads are overflowing onto the internet like raw sewage, and when we click on them we tell advertisers that their schemes are effective.

We all know where and how to search for what we need, and how to get good deals. Stop rewarding manipulative advertisement and take full charge of your own searches and purchases.

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED TO ME. I DID LIKE ALL THE OTHERS AND ENDED UP GETTING WHAT I CALL SMUT MAIL AND IT GETS NASTIER AND NASTIER EVERY DAY. DON'T FALL FOR THIS CRAP. THE FCC NEEDS TO REALLY STEP UP AND KEEP US HONEST FOLK SAFE

At least when you saw a Billy Mays advertisement, you KNEW he was there to sell you something. These fake ads MSNBC displays like, "A mom in [your town] lost a billion pounds..." have got to go. Is there really anyone who's reading an article about the war in Afghanistan suddenly interested in losing weight, or did they just accidentally click on the silly ad, ringing up another paid click for the middle man? I just don't see how a legitimate company DOESN'T see just how ineffective money spent this kind of advertising really is.

People People People, Come on now Dosen't everybody know that we the computer users control all aspects of the internet by not clicking on to anything that we did not serch for and agree to use;ie;trusted sites. Shame on you if you click. Usuer beware.

A decade ago, the internet was so much more informative and useful before it became so commercially inudated. The first signal of alarm, for me, came when search engines returned advertisements rather than substative results when a search was made. These days, if you search for George Washington you'll first be directed to a sites selling something related to the First President (books, plastic busts, etc.) and then, two pages later you might find something useful. Thank God for Wikipedia, at least. The internet has been diluted and cheapened by advertisements.

This practice has a more malevolent flavor, as well, of which people should be aware. I'm an IT/security practitioner, and was recently presented with a compromised PC to recover. The PC had been hit with one of the many rogue anti-virus scams. When I went to look for information on the particular type of infection, using the compromised machine, the malware engineer had inserted broswer hijacks that redirected all search requests to ersatz versions of google, yahoo, bing, etc. The search results on the FAKE versions of those search engines each pointed to hundreds of additional sites -- with fake blogs, fake customer support discussions, fake downloads, fake 'fix' tools -- all of which would have taken a compromised machine from partially compromised to COMPLETELY compromised. As a professional in the field, (and a guy from brooklyn) my suspicions were up immediately when i was presented with dozens of 'security' companies i'd never heard of. The message here is that a writer of one bit of malware had created 1000s of sites and discussions - an alternate universe - to support making the bad that had been done even worse for some unsuspecting schmoe. The amount of energy, ingenuity and effort required is simply staggering. This kind of activity undercuts the authority of any and all information shared via the internet - caveat emptor, indeed. Twice.

probably the worst example of this was end of last year, beginning of this year after the stimulus passed and scammers were charging $80 a month to view their spoofed "obama government grants" website. The up front fee was supposed to be $2 for a CD (that never arrives), but the fine print stated they can bill your card on a regular basis for $50-$80/month. I'm surprised that google and adbrite didn't get rid of those scam ads sooner, but those misleading ad companies who claim they don't support scams refuse to get rid of them until an attorney gets involved. They make too much money from the scammers to remove them unless they are publically embarrassed. It's all nonesense that google and adbrite claim they don't support scams then tell the public they don't even look at ads they receive money for.

I'll believe that action is being taken against these scams when sites (especially MSNBC) disable Pulse360, which has become the plague of these sites.

Are you sure this article is real? Maybe it's not. Maybe it's one of those "farticles." I think I should investigate this further.

I have the answer go to www.admuncher.com download the program and you will never see another advertisement of any kind on your computer. Also big websites should not allow these scammers to advertise does anybody check with the BBB before accepting advertisements? If pot becomes legal can we advertise a bag of weed on FOX news??

Is this article real? I mean it's not one of those fake articles is it? You know one of those "farticles?" How do I know you didn't just make all this crap up? Hmmmmm, better investigate.

NOt only does MSNBC.COM provide a place for these fakeosphere people to conduct business, it also provides them with data to help them legitamize their fake websites. It looks as if they are people from your own community. I say that MSNBC.COM provides this info because the tag lines already have the location info in them before you even click on the link!

Just another example of how capitalism has become corrupted by greedy, lying and shiftless individuals and corporations who just keep sticking it to consumers and the consumer that is so empty headed that they will fall for any ridiculous offer that just happens to show up in almost every media outlet.

Place adsonar.com, pulse360.com, and adblade.com in your HOSTS file and you won't have to worry about those anymore. You might still see the ads, but you (or your family) won't be able to click and be taken. Search Google for HOSTS file and you will see plenty of examples and help files to edit your HOSTS file.

This very thing happened to me and I went to the Bank to let them know; also the Police. A week after it happened to me, the New York Times ran a front page article that told about the FBI cracking this ring from Gyanna. But I'm sure there are others out there just trying to get your financial information.

I clicked on one of these ads some time back. It looked legit, and I tried clicking on some apparent links...it got me nowhere. I backed out before pursuing anything further...it probably would have taken my money.

I've been seeing more and more of these fakeosphere promotions, and I'm glad to see a high profile site like yours covering this scam.

I'm placing a link from my blog, to make sure my readers don't miss this important article

Thanks for continuing to expose the scammers.

Many ads violate so-called "Federal Advertising Laws" - the Feds just don't have trhe time, manpower or inclination to do anything about it. Whatever the case is, local, state and federal government will do anything to protect a business over the consumer, because it is the businesses that feed the kitty at election time. In my opinion, if you click on an ad due to the testimonial of someone you have never heard of or don't know and get "taken," you probably deserve to be taken. Take the time to research the company, check out their website (if they have one) and ask people you know what they have heard about the product. More likely than not, you will find it has SCAM written all over it. You CAN'T lose 100 pounds in a month by taking a pill, trust me.

I understand the issue ... it's just that I absolutely detest further governmental faux help ... efforts to warn us are good, such as your effort here, BUT MORE GOVERNMENT That is supposed to help & protect?? (Wall Street cured me of this illusion) ... Just say NO NO NO to the FTC, FCC & the other letters.

Note that MSNBC.com is filled with ads that lead to these flogs. Why doesn't MSNBC filter out, block, these scams?

should we be surprised that the ads right now on msnbc.com include 3 such ads, including rachelrayblogs.com? Thats not even how she spells her name.

Very good as usual! But we would like to know how all these scams end up! For example, what happened with the "consolidation companies" that were targeted by the New York General Attorney?

It's not surprising when an unknow media buyer offers advanced payment for display advertising anyone will agree. what worries is that Yahoo still advertise such products.

This is an interesting article. The ironic thing also is that these ads for 'flogs' are on MSNBC's site all the time. Teeth whitening miracle, the '1 old rule to obey', and Obama encouraging mom's to return to school (with a video of a woman doing sit-ups??).

Fake blogs, amazing. What's next, fake news shows? Hmm...generating fake content to promote a product, sounds like Fox "News" to me.

These things are everywhere. To me it's suprising how much advertising the Acai berry and teeth-whitening scams an afford. It's not uncommon to see 4 ads for the same product/website side by side, especially in the case of the teeth-whiteners. It's the same text about a "mom" discovering some super secret way to whiten teeth placed next to a random stock image of someones mouth. (There are definitely legitimate ads that also show up on seemingly every website you visit (EVE ads come to mind), so not every ad campaign that carpet-bombs the internet is a scam)

Any heavy internet user will recognize fake blogs/forums as advertisements pretty quickly, and most wouldn't dare click on the links to begin with, but I can easily see how, to the casual surfer, these websites can appear legit.

My main gripe is that the FTC is waaaaay too slow to react to new, illegal forms of advertising on the web. By the time they actually take action (usually a couple years after the start of the scams) these companies have filled their bank account and moved on to the next big scam.

The people who fall for this deserve what they (don't) get. Seeing all of these "Just one rule" ads for weight loss, etc. and "Mom discovers how to get white teeth at no cost" ads, it was obvious that they were just that - advertisements. I clicked on some to see the scam, and it was obvious (to anyone with a brain) that the "testimonials" were carefully worded to support the sale of a product. Dumb-Ass BEWARE!!!