While skimming over the news on my PC, as is my wont, I came upon the page below from Yahoo! News. At first glance it appears to offer bite-size bits of articles with the option to click on them for the full story. But have a look at the third “article”. It is not a news piece at all, but an advertisement disguised to look like news.
I understand that advertising revenue is what makes the Internet, if not the world, go around. By all means place advertising on webpages, but please don’t try to slip them in as news. I realize that there is a small … very small, note indicating that this is a sponsored ad, and not news. But I think the Yahoo! News folks may have to rethink this as I believe more people will be put off than encouraged to follow the link.
As for the advertiser, Harry’s, do you really want to appear as a company that has to trick people?
I am very wary about what I click on, especially on social media sites. It isn’t even that I mind the ads per se. But I do mind that most of these sites contain adware, much of it malicious.