Quote:
Originally posted by murasame
Speaking of Yahoo!, you do know I suppose that typing in Limewire as search keyword at Yahoo!.com returns as Sponsor results(!) scam sites.
Man. And I was wondering how all those people got tricked. I see it now. You're new to the net. You've heard of Yahoo! (probably even used it once or twice before too). You've also heard of Limewire. So you look for it in Yahoo!.com and come up with the scam sites and get tricked because you're new...
I took the trouble to send them feedback (at the bottom of the search results page), telling them that people are being tricked because of their "sponsor results". (I didn't mention that Google doesn't do that, but now that I think about it, maybe I should have). I don't think that one feedback like that will do something, but maybe if more people sent them feedback like that (yes, I'm talking about all of you in here. Those who got tricked and those who didn't altogether), then maybe, just maybe, they might decide to think it through. |
Sponsored links on Yahoo! or on ZDNet/CNET/Download.com does not mean approval by these services or quality or popularity. It's just an indication that the "sponsors" payed to get a placement on their search result pages.
I never follow such sponsored links on any site, unless this was the site I really wanted to visit before making the search...
Anyone can buy a placement on these services even for a poor and bogous product. There's no a-priori control, except for the payment itself. Of course if the sponsored link reveals to be a scam, Yahoo can make something after scrutiny, but only if the sponsor broke a Yahoo TOS policy, or if there's something illegal according to the US law. A link by itself is not illegal, unless the whole sponsored site is declared illegal. It will be easier to demonstrate a breach in the Yahoo TOS policy, if the sponsor uses its link on Yahoo to perform abusive operations such as spamming (the link alone shown on Yahoo results is not a spam), or abuse of a reserved trademark (if that link uses "LimeWire" in its domain name and describe its service without permission from Lime Wire LLC, NYC, USA). What can be done in this case is that LimeWire contacts Yahoo to claim its ownership on the registered trademark.
This said, the first two "sponsored results" on Yahoo are not working now (domain name parked?):
- www(dot)limewire-downloads(dot)com
- www(dot)limewiresoftware(dot)com
But the three others are still working:
- mp3downloadhq(dot)com
- www(dot)mp3sharing(dot)us
- www(dot)mp3musiczone(dot)com
The last three include the terms "with LimeWire" in their description, and this is an abuse of trademark. Additionally, none of these sites respect the GPL licence for the software copyright. Who will pay $1/month for these scammers that want you to pay to download a free software, modified with spywares and an illegal licence?