WashingtonPost.Com - Unwillingly Supporting A Scam?

WashingtonPost.Com – Unwillingly Supporting A Scam?

On January 8, 2010, in Making Money from Home, by Wilfried F. Voss

This article is part of a series on Online fraud. Read more…

As I had written in a previous post, reading the New York Times and The Washington Post, both Online, on a regular basis has become my regular morning habit. Recently I noticed that The Washington Post has found another clever way of increasing their revenues by offering local ads. These ads are designed to read the viewer’s IP address and determine the physical location. All this could be interpreted as a clever marketing trick, but my admiration for the Washington Post’s new ways to create Online revenues faded quickly as soon as I found out that the location information was not used to provide real local ads, but to modify the ad’s message in a very misleading way. To make things worse, these ads are, in my very personal opinion, designed to defraud unsuspecting viewers.

Today I wrote an e-mail to the washingtonpost.com:

From: Wilfried Voss

Date: January 8, 2010 9:59:25 AM EST

To: letters@washpost.com

Subject: Fraudulent ads on washingtonpost.com

To whom it may concern;

I would be interested in your position regarding the posting of fraudulent ads on washingtonpost.com, especially those posted through pulse360. I have seen ads promoting the “Google Profit Library” which is a proven scam. And it doesn’t stop there. There are more ads such as “[Your Hometown Here] Local Mom Tricks To Whiter Teeth” and “[Your Hometown Here] Warning!” Replace “[Your Hometown Here]” with the location of your IP address.

The ads posted by pulse360 give the impression they have been posted by local businesses. As a matter of fact, the ads are modified according to the viewer’s IP address, and thus displaying false information that cannot be explained as being special marketing features.

I, personally, am disturbed that the Washington Post acts as an accomplice in a scheme that is designed to defraud hundreds of thousand of Americans.

I am awaiting your response. I also reserve the right to post this e-mail and any further communication on my blog.

Regards,
Wilfried Voss
http://www.frogenyozurt.com

We will see whether or not I receive a response, and if yes, I will post it/them here.