[Update] Perfidious sneaky new advertising trap on facebook

Submitted by Stefan Gofferje on Sat, 01/05/2013 - 13:51

On 02.01.2013, I wrote about a new, potentially illegal and definitely sneaky and perfidious advertising method on facebook, utilizing notifications to get the user curious. Today, it became clear that it was no glitch or single event but there is some system behind it.

Again today there was a notification, this time "Ah Le also commented on sikkimonline.info". Again, neither is Mr. Ah Le in my friend list, nor did I ever comment on sikkimonline.info.

Again, a click on this notification lead - without the usual "you are leaving facebook"-warning to sikkimonline.info, which redirected to an advertising page for Disneyland (URL: http://www.fun2cell.net/fi-fi/disneyland/?tc=0&media=BA&mtag=incent&cid=dbcc9837-7f86-403b-a500-2d2d7133ec57).

And again, this advertising was illegally not marked as advertising but camoflaged as normal notification.