The Anatomy of a Web Advertising Scam

SLATE HAS A FINANCIALLY-ORIENTED SITE, TBM, and Chadwick Matlin has a very informative article on how a lot of web advertising works. Check out Affiliate Hell.

Some sketchy ad leads you to some sketchy testimonial page, which then leads you to the sketchy product itself. When you order the product, the vendor doesn’t always make clear that you’re signing up for a free trial, and when that’s over you’ll be charged up to $90 every month until you find a way to cancel. There isn’t much information about why all of these scams operate in the same way, even though this kind of Web advertising is quite prevalent. TBM felt it was time to investigate.