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Business: Advertising: Media: Computer
[Next Idea]   (+11, -13)  [vote for, against]
ads that don't use pictures, only deceiving links

My most evil idea yet.

Who needs huge color ads when you can deceive gullible people into clicking links like:

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Let's just hope this doesn't become baked. Though, it would work, from an advertiser's point of view...

(This was originally in Public: Evil. That explains why all the votes went from positive, to negative... meh.)
-- ghillie, Oct 09 2004

[link] http://www.halfbake...Computer_3a_20Virus
WARNING: Viruses have been found on your computer. Click here to disinfect. [footzilla, Oct 02 2005]

This is evil indeed. [+]
-- Pericles, Oct 09 2004


Some internet pop-ups have appearances similar to windows. Thus by trying to click the "x" on the top right-hand corner of the box in an attempt to close it out, you are redirected to a site. Or inundated with more pop-ups.
-- Letsbuildafort, Oct 09 2004


clever, use it and I'll hunt you down...
-- dentworth, Oct 09 2004


Enough to turn you off the internet altogether.
-- wagster, Oct 09 2004


[annotate]
-- jutta, Oct 09 2004


[for, neutral, against]

I'm for it.
-- DesertFox, Oct 09 2004


This is evil [+],
but not in a good way [-].
Also, it would have a negative impact on me, personally. [-]
Total -1
-- nick_n_uit, Oct 10 2004


Can I move this back to Public:Evil? Its getting a lot of negative votes... heck, this is a good, evil idea.
-- ghillie, Oct 11 2004


I'd love to vote for this idea but sadly I daren't click on any of the voting buttons.
-- DrBob, Oct 11 2004


Yes, this definitely belongs in public:evil. I'll refrain from voting until it is properly catagorized.

I don't understand this type of advertising, but it seems to happen all too often. Any ad that tricks me into requesting more information, or takes any of my time without providing some service that I have explicitely requested (for example I don't mind TV ads if I turned the TV on) will cause me to strongly reconsider ever giving that company any business. Does this type of thing work on enough people to make up for all the other business they loose (not to mention the wasted advertising dollars), or is this type of advertising basically a scam by marketing companies because they can say they drove some ammount of traffic to some web page, and they don't care if the advertising service they are charging for is actually having a negative marketing effect?
-- scad mientist, Oct 11 2004


Baked! Not only in the way that LBAF mentioned, but widely used on some of the seedier sites on the net - anything where you might expect to find a "banner farm". Not just adult sites, but also "warez" sites, video game cheat code sites, cable descrabler sites etc. Deceiving links are the norm - often there will be an entire page of them.

I would offer a linkie, but I'm not sure a good way to find one without spending all day slogging through popups.
-- ooys, Oct 11 2004


*moves back to Evil, if that's okay...*

I forgot to add:

[Download Plug-in]
1[2][3][4][5]

Not to start a list, or anything...
-- ghillie, Oct 14 2004


[annotate]



























Yeah, I know Jutta already did it, but it needed just a little adjustment for full effect.
-- Ling, Oct 14 2004


I moved it into advertising for a reason - it's about advertising. The "evil" attribution in this particular case is just an emotional judgement, and I try not to categorize things based on emotional judgement or humorous little comments (otherwise, nobody can find anything, because there are far fewer emotional attributions available than there are factual things, and they aren't always clear.) People agree with the emotional judgement, it's satisfying to have emotions as a group, and that's why people lobby for categorizing it this way, but that doesn't make it right in a single-category system. (In a multi-category system, tagging it with "evil" wouldn't be a problem. Hm. Maybe we should switch to a tagging system.)

So, take the positive votes as laughter and the negative votes as a nice, loud, public outcry. You can't lose!
-- jutta, Oct 02 2005


Would these be links on the website or just a popup with those options on it???
-- nahte123, Oct 02 2005



random, halfbakery