Just before Christmas, Internet service company GoDaddy apologized for not having a holiday party this year because of the coronavirus, but instead emailed employees news of a holiday bonus they could sign up for.
The email from HappyHoliday@GoDaddy.com directed employees to a link to sign up for the bonus, and presumably asked them to verify their identity by entering their official login credentials, etc. so the bonus could be processed.
A few days later the 500 or so employees who signed up got another email from the company.
*MOUSE PRINT: (details that were missing from the first email)
This time they were told the invitation was really a phishing test by the company, that they just failed it, and they would have to attend a remedial class on Internet security. And incidentally, there really was no company bonus this year.
Employees were livid and ultimately GoDaddy apologized for pulling this stunt so close to the holidays when money was short for many people.
[This story was originally reported by the Copper Courier.]
Last week, MrConsumer received an email seemingly from Amazon saying it was sending along a $100 gift card as a thank you. How nice of them. But on closer inspection, this was a scam.
*MOUSE PRINT:
First, the email was addressed to “abuse@consumerworld.org” which is not a personal email. Secondly, when hovering over the “view details” button with the mouse, you see that clicking it would take you to “woo-brands.com” and not to Amazon. Visiting that site could well have infected my computer with malware, trigger whatever trap the sender intended.
And checking the IP addresses in the header information of this email (under source in most email programs), you see that the email appears to have originated in China and had a lovely journey through Italy on the way to Boston.
*MOUSE PRINT:
So, the lesson here is that no matter how legitimate an email looks, double-check any links or buttons, no matter what they say, before clicking on them.
We turn to news sites like CNBC, USA Today, CNN and many others for news stories written by seasoned reporters independent of the advertising sales side of these businesses. So, we can generally expect the stories we see on those sites not to be advertising in disguise, or somehow tempered by the writer’s knowledge that the subject of the story advertises on that site, right?
More and more, however, big name news sites are blurring the line between conventional news stories written by the site’s journalists, and what is called “commerce content.” The whole purpose of commerce content is to publish what look like news or feature stories but whose purpose is really to sell stuff to readers thereby allowing the site to earn a commission. All this is done under the aura of the well-known and trusted name of the news site on which these articles appear.
Here is an advertisement for CNN Underscored which reviews various products:
If you go to CNN Underscored directly, or from a search result, you will find a long list of stories such as ones about buying the best laptop, or finding the best cash back credit card.
At the top of the site, however, there is a fine print disclaimer:
*MOUSE PRINT:
CNN Underscored is your guide to the everyday products and services that help you live a smarter, simpler and more fulfilling life. The content is created by CNN Underscored. CNN News staff is not involved. When you make a purchase, we receive revenue. [color added for emphasis]
That’s right. CNN (and the other sites mentioned below) typically use other writers and reporters to write these stories to help lead you to make a purchase and thus compensate the website’s publisher.
Interestingly, in its “About Us” section, CNN says that the Underscored staff doesn’t always test the products themselves but rather reads others’ reviews or other organizations’ test results as part of its research process.
Below is a Who’s Who of news media with either whole sections devoted to these sales pitches dressed up to look like regular consumer stories, or who intermingle commerce content or sponsored stories with legitimate news stories. Some do a better job than others in researching the subject matter of the story and thus provide a valuable service. Most of them do a relatively poor job in disclosing that they make money if you make a purchase from the links in their articles.
So many news sites are now promoting links from which they can get paid that the Wall Street Journal has put a disclaimer at the end of some of its stories saying that it is NOT receiving any such compensation:
*MOUSE PRINT:
The trouble with these types of stories on many of the news websites is that they often are listed in Google News or Bing News when doing searches of news stories. So you have to look carefully at ANY news story to see if it is a regular news feature or a story designed to get you to buy a product or service.
