Fake News Sites Are Misleading Consumers

Have you ever come across fake news websites that really is trying to sell you a product? Many people may think that they are real news stories.They are not.

Viewers see a logo title that sounds like a news organization such as "News Reports 10" or 6 or 11 or some other number. Or they may say "News Alert 6" or "News 6 Alert", etc. Or instead of the words "News", they will use the word "Consumer" such as "Consumer Tips Digest" or some variant.

And the web URL address is constructed to be official-sounding with similar keywords in the URL as well. Some of these advertisers had even purchased ".org" domain name suffixes in the hopes that people may think that they are a legitimate organization.

They may have multiple domain names and may be changing their website title and images and content frequently.

If you come across one of these fake news sites, be careful and examine them careful. Many are really "advertorials".

Advertorials are basically advertisement posing as a real news story. In other words, Advertorials are fake news stories. Wikipedia defines the term in nicer language:

"An advertorial is an advertisement written in the form of an objective article, and presented in a printed publication—usually designed to look like a legitimate and independent news story."

Except they are not just in printed publication. They are on the web. And there are more and more of them these days.

If you scroll to the top or bottom of these fake news sites, you may see in fine print the words "advertorial". If you see that word, you know that it is advertisement and not a news story.

Sometimes they are nice enough to tell you that they are fake. Sometimes at the bottom of these sites (or on a separate page linked to by a small link), you might find fine print that says ...

"This website, and any page on the website, is based loosely off a true story, but has been modified in multiple ways including, but not limited to: the story, the photos, and the comments. Thus, this blog, and any page on this website, are not to be taken literally or as a non-fiction story."

Look at the confusing double-negative construction of the last sentence. They say it is not to be taken as a non-fiction story. Why don't they simply say it is fictional, since that is what is meant.  In other words, it is made up.

How can such misleading advertisement be legal? Maybe they protect themselves with disclaimers such as the following found at the bottom of their page that may say something like ...

"This blog, and the results mentioned on this blog, although achievable for some, are not to be construed as the results that you may achieve on the same routine. I UNDERSTAND THIS WEBSITE IS ONLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF WHAT MIGHT BE ACHIEVABLE FROM USING THIS/THESE PRODUCTS, AND THAT THE STORY DEPICTED ABOVE IS NOT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY."

It also may say ...

"This page receives compensation for clicks on or purchase of products featured on this site."

No, do not click on the links. Just examine them. On most browsers, you can hover your mouse over the links and see at the bottom status bar the destination that you will be taken if you click the link. One dead give-away of these advertorials is that nearly all the links goes to the same "landing page".

You hover your mouse over the website logo, and you see that it takes you to the same landing page. You hover over the image of the lady who claims to have made such-and-such dollars a month working from home, and it take you to the same landing page. You hover over the images of what looks to be like news reporters, and see that the link takes you to the same landing page.

Some pages may have what looks to be like user comments. You hover your mouse over the username links in those comments, and you see ... "Hey, how come all these username links is all taking me to the same landing page?" But you now know that they are just fictional made-up comments.

Okay, what happens if you do click on these links and they "got you" and took you to their landing page. No doubt, you will find some aggressive advertising pitch (maybe even audio and video) with some sign up form for some product.

And when you try to leave that page, they may try to stop you by offering you an additional discount. Or they may have an alert dialog box pop up that prevent you from closing the page until you figure out the correct button to press in the alert box.

But make sure you read the fine print on these landing pages. They may say things like ... "Testimonials are not typical of most results."

Read the fine print of the billing terms before you put in your credit card. Some may refer to "negative option" or "negative-option billing plan" which means that they can charge your card on a regular basis until you call to cancel.

Sometimes you may see the fake news story say Mrs. so-and-so (fake name) from "New York" has made $X amount from home. And you think, "Hey New York is in my local neighborhood. So if she can do it, maybe I can too".

Do not be fooled. These site use "geo-targeting". It has code that can determine your IP address of your internet connection and from that IP address determine your general location in the country. The code then dynamically put in a major city that is close to where you are.

Someone browsing the page from San Francisco may see the fake news story reporting the same fake-named person as being from "San Francisco". Someone browsing from New York may see the fake news report say the lady is from New York.  If you are in Chicago, it may say she is from Chicago.

Now, how can this same person be from San Francisco, New York, and Chicago at the same time? If that is not called false advertisement, then I don't know what is.

You can test this out yourself. The next time you come across one of these fake news stories. Put in the URL of that page into a free proxy server and view the page from there. For example, you can go to freeproxyserver.net and put in the URL of the fake news story. A proxy server is a server located somewhere else that will connect to the internet on your behalf. It will still show you the news story. But look, this time the city of the fake-named person is missing. That is because the code on the fake site was not able to determine your location due to the use of the proxy server. Or it will give you a different city name from what you saw before.

By the way, sometimes you may see the fake-named person pictured with sunglasses. Perhaps she is trying to hide her identity? In any cases, this picture and the fake name may change on a regular basis or may be different depending on the different versions of the advertorial.

Sometimes the fake news site may show what seem to be an extensive navigation menu bar and a weather widget to make it "look like" a news site.

But if you hover over the links of the navigation menu bar, and see that they all go to the same landing page, then you know it is fake. If the only article on the site is about this one product, then it is fake news site.

A real news site will have lots of menu and links that goes to many different articles across many different topics.

Some fake news sites may have a weather widget that does actually show correctly the weather in your area. That does not mean that the new story is real. The weather widget can easily be embedded into a webpage to show real weather. That is not so hard to do.

Although, you and other internet-savvy viewers may easily distinguish these fake news sites; there are many people who may be new to the internet and may be fooled by these fake news sites.

Watch the investigative report video by Jesse Jones of King 5 News linked here. This one is a real news site and Jesse Jones is a real reporter. He shows us how an consumer was mislead by one of these fake news sites into purchasing a "free trial" of acai-berry-related product. That's right, it was marketed as free trial, but somehow they were taking the consumer money at the same time. The investigative report also mentioned that "rogue advertising companies are behind these fake reports".

Whereas "King 5 News" is a real news site at King5.com in the Seattle area, the fake news site uses a similarly sounding name like "News-5".

This is not the first time these advertising companies are trying confuse consumers by associating themselves with legitimate entities. There have been instances where Internet marketers have been using Dr. Mehmet Oz photo and name illegally in their efforts to market their products. Dr. Oz is a doctor and host of The Dr. Oz television show. Harpo Inc (the producers of Oprah Winfrey Show and the Dr. Oz Show) have taken legal action against 40 of these Internet marketers for trademark infringement. In a statement on Oprah.com, it says ...

"Harpo, Inc. has filed this lawsuit to let consumers know that these internet marketers are willfully using the names of well-known figures to deceive the public. Neither Ms. Winfrey nor Dr. Oz has ever sponsored or endorsed any acai, resveratrol or dietary supplement product and cannot vouch for their safety or effectiveness. It is our intention to put an end to these companies’ false claims and increasingly deceptive practices."

Dr. Oz says ...

"The companies that are using my name to hawk these products are duping the public. I do not endorse any of these products. By falsely presenting products as ‘scientifically proven’ and endorsed by well-known figures, these companies do a gross disservice to the public health and could even pose a danger to those who believe their false and unproven claims. I am taking this step in the interest of public safety. I feel compelled to stand up against these companies and their deceitful practices."^[ref]

They are correct. The public is being deceived and may even be harmed. If you search the Internet you will find complaints about these duplicitous advertisers on sites such as ComplaintsBoard.com. You will find people asking on forums asking whether such-and-such is a scam or real. There are a lot of confused and mislead consumers out there.

How are people finding these fake news sites? Well, they may be reading a legitimate news article in some big well-known site when they see an ad-link about working-from-home, or acai-berry-based product. When they click the ad, they land onto these fake news sites.

In fact, such ad-links had been seen on even big legitimate sites like MSNBC.com. If you own a website, please do not publish ads that will take users to these duplicitous advertisers -- even if they pay you a lot of money. They must be paying a good deal of money if they are able to get advertisement spots on popular sites like MSNBC.com.  This also seems to imply that they are making a lot of money off of unsuspecting consumers. Ethics are more important. And it is unethical to contribute to the deception of consumers.

See what other legitimate sources have to say about these advertorials in the below links. There you can also see examples of some of these fake news sites looks like.