The
ScumWare part of their scam allows them to make
changes to every web page you visit, turning plain
text words into links in order to hijack you from
the site you are enjoying and deliver you to some
useless web site operated by someone who will do
anything for an easy buck.
Not satisfied with that much corruption of the
works of the people who built the page you are
viewing, they even corrupt the links on the page
to redirect you to their second rate list of advertisers
who pay them for each and every hijacked person
delivered to the advertiser's site. Usually the
site you wind up at is some unethical product
like cable TV theft devices. Doesn't surprise
me that they would be Scumming the web together.
Remember that they infected you by giving away
a program that allows copyrighted songs to be
shared in clear violation of the law.
When this whole scam started, most
of the advertisers were being victimized just
as much as you are. They thought they were getting
honest traffic from Pay Per Click search engines
which is a respected method of generating traffic
to a web site. However, some of the engines were
so desperate for money since the DotCom crash
that they were willing to join in this ScumWare
campaign and skim off a bunch of the money for
themselves without revealing to their advertisers
where this traffic was being created. The ScumWare
campaign has been so effective that Surf+ now
has only one engine left - Ah-ha.com - and has
stopped putting their green scum all over the
web.
Take a close look at the above picture of a page
from the New Scientist web site. It contains an
article about a new health invention that is likened
to an airplane's 'black box.' I first saw this green
splattered page when my son was doing some research
for a school project. The ScumWare spin doctors
tell us that they are offering valuable assistance
to the public who are interested in finding easier
and more relevant ways to travel in Cyber Space.
When I clicked on the green
link to find out what valuable assistance they would
offer my son who was researching a medical invention,
I found that what they thought he wanted was to
buy a device to let him cheat the cable TV company
out of their money for the services they provide.
Not just them but everyone with even the smallest
involvement in making the movies and putting them
on the air. Just a few more victims of the ScumWare
code of greed. Personally,
I don't think I need their help if they are going
to try to teach my son to steal as an acceptable
way of life. They started out teaching kids how
to steal music and they stay right down there
in the muck.
I won't even go into any details
about the links to pornography I saw while visiting
a Boy Scouts web site.
Now comes our merry band of Green Scummers and
they actually change the information in the advertisement
legitimately placed there for the visitor to see
and click on if they are interested. Any visitor
that the ScumWare folks can hijack from the advertiser
who placed his ad in good faith, represents an
honest merchant who has been cheated of his due,
GoTo has been cheated out of their chance to earn
an income and now must eat the costs they incur
each time they display an ad even if the ScumWare
bandits hijack it away.
We'd all like to find a business
where we don't have to create anything and just
spend all day going to the bank to make deposits.
It's just that most of us would not be able to
live with ourselves doing it the way the ScumWare
folks do it.
One last question for you.
If you've arrived at some merchant's
web site who is willing to do business in this
unethical manner, do you really want to pull out
your credit card and give him the number?
By: Jim Wilson
