Talk about Misleading Users

Hi! Not the first time I read your blog. I can not only understand how you can subscribe to your RSS-feed? I would like to read you, and more.

I'm really annoyed at ads like these. It's ads that I'd never click, but I know people who are gullible enough fall for it all the time. What is really scary is that many of the things linked to can be trojans or other forms of malware.

Good find Scott - and the comparison is very good. Over the years we have seen some pretty deceptive practices being called "creative marketing" at times. In a world where conversion doesn't matter...all the ads have to do is makes someone click.

I tried to dig up an old speech I gave a few years ago, cause I had pictures of some good examples similar to what you have... but couldn't find it... the premise though was about deceptive ads and some examples... off the top of my head I remember:


"Click here you are a winner"

"Your computer may be infected with a virus, click here"

Ads that are designed to look exactly like a Windows System popup, where the "X" in the top right corner doesn't close the ad, but instead clicks through to an ad.

These ads tend to find their way onto popuplar sites like "Lyrics", "music downloads".... things where the amount of traffic is very high - but where better marketing methods such as Affiliate Marketing do not work very well due to the intention of the user (come to site, get lyric, leave)... So these sites often use Ad Networks to monetize - leaving the Advertiser to try to come up with ways to increase click thru count.

I found a few examples just by browsing around - but didn't want to post them here didn't know if you wanted them - so posted on my blog you can take a look if you want. If you browse around on sites like the ones that I mentioned above though, you'll see plenty of your own examples.... and not suprisingly they are served very often by the same 2 Ad networks...

Anyhow - I agree with you - both Google and Reunion.com should be way above this... considering Google already has a "deceptive ad" policy for PPC ads.

There's no surprise to it i think. Everyday they will find a way to get the users. It's all about advertising. They have to be creative or else theres no advertisement.

Oh man, that was a clever advertising to include that in Gmail. I guess nobody would be caution enough to know it's an advert.

Sorry, I wrote this one in a bit of a rush, I could have been more clear.

But even in an influenza-induced stupor you're sharp enough to pick up on this stuff.

That's exactly what it is. That's Gmail's advertising spot right there where the arrow's pointing to.

scott, i have the flu, so am a lil slow on the uptake today. second screenshot about time and whenu is from your archives of yesteryear's deceptive shitake. And today's highlighted spam scam slam is that little line that says "Unread Message (1)" stuff... is that a google adwords ad built to look like it's something other than an ad? If I'm getting it right (sorry, don't use gmail yet), shame on reunion.com, but serious shame on G themselves.

Since when does "Unread Message (1)" qualify as a good ad title?

Hideously good find.

I agree, damn creative. I saw it too and on one level was impressed. But dammit, that's the kind of thing that makes the JCs of the world stand up and lambaste us.

And I still run into people that have that spyware download show up on their machines. One woman was still running Win98!