Penny auction advertising on MacRumors

FloatingBones · Apr 8, 2011

What's the story with all of the penny auction advertisements on the site? As this article in Wired shows (part1, part2), even legitimate penny auction sites are nothing more than a form of gambling. They are certainly not a viable alternative for retail purchase of products.

The unscrupulous penny auction sites use either humans or bots to pump up the price and the number of bits on an auction. Since legitimate customers are charged by the bid on penny auctions, these scams artificially raise the price of the items. Some sites do not send the product as it's portrayed in the "auction" or will fail to send any product at all to winning bidder. There is no formal regulation of this industry.

Is there any way to pull those ads, or are they essential to the viability of the website?

Consultant · Apr 8, 2011

I've tried to block them on my site, but there are just so many copycat sites. You block one, another one shows up.

Apple OC · Apr 8, 2011

donate $25 a year to MR and remove all the Ads ... IMO well worth it

Doctor Q · Apr 8, 2011

FloatingBones said:
Is there any way to pull those ads, or are they essential to the viability of the website?

The ads at MacRumors come from a third party; we don't select them ourselves. When there are objectionable ads we can remove them, and we've removed penny auction sites in the past.

However, we aren't able to remove all of them a priori, so we need you or someone else to give us a screenshot of an offending ad and the URL that it links to so we can arrange to have it removed from the ad pool.

bigjnyc · Apr 8, 2011

I don't see why an ad would bother people more than another. unless there is offensive content on the ad whats the difference? Dont like the product or company in the ad then dont click on it. Even the most reputable companies scam and screw consumers over in one form or another trust me.

Doctor Q · Apr 8, 2011

Here is a previous thread about the subject.

FloatingBones · Apr 9, 2011

This ad appeared on the homepage. The ad URL was this.

That's a link to costdropper.com. The ad is a misrepresentation: of course there's a gimmick: it sends you to a gambling site and not a retailer. Please pull it.

gnasher729 · Apr 9, 2011

FloatingBones said:
That's a link to costdropper.com. The ad is a misrepresentation: of course there's a gimmick: it sends you to a gambling site and not a retailer. Please pull it.

And on the this very page I see an advert for the British site "madbids.com". They managed to get one TV advert through before the adverts were banned for being misleading. Good news is that swoopo now suffers from "technical difficulties" - the technical difficulty is that they filed for bankruptcy.

Well, I know a few people who are really nice, but not very smart. And I would fear that they could very easily get ripped off by one of these sites. (I also know a few people who are not very nice, and not very smart. I still wouldn't want them to give their money to a scam like these).

CalBoy · Apr 9, 2011

bigjnyc said:
I don't see why an ad would bother people more than another. unless there is offensive content on the ad whats the difference? Dont like the product or company in the ad then dont click on it. Even the most reputable companies scam and screw consumers over in one form or another trust me.

My concern is more with the predatory nature of these bidding websites. Obviously there's no such thing as a free lunch, but not every forum member is going to be as wise (or perhaps experienced) to know that. If Mac Rumors as a brand becomes affiliated with these websites, it could be damaging.

Of course it's difficult to remove these ads, so I realize the technical limitations might make this more difficult. However, I wouldn't want Mac Rumors associated with this kind of scam if I were the owner.

Doctor Q · Apr 11, 2011

We've asked to have this ad removed. Thanks for reporting it.

FloatingBones · Apr 13, 2011

Doctor Q said:
We've asked to have this ad removed. Thanks for reporting it.

Thanks, Doc. Here's the next one:

Here is the link target on save-big.org. Again: the ad is deceptive: it sounds as if there is a one-day sale rather than a link to a gambling site.

Doctor Q · Apr 16, 2011

Thanks. We thumbed our nose at that one too.

FloatingBones · Apr 18, 2011

Great reduction in the number of penny auction ads! Thanks, Q.

I just saw one more:

Here is the link that ad points to.

The quibids ad is an other deceptive one: it equates shopping at a department store with visiting a gambling website.

Doctor Q · Apr 19, 2011

^ We arranged to have that one removed too.

FloatingBones · Apr 20, 2011

Another ad today. Here is the link.

This is the same company reported on April 9. Thanks, Doctor Q.

Doctor Q · Apr 21, 2011

The ad shown above should now be gone.

FloatingBones · Apr 21, 2011

Here's the next one. URL

Thanks Dr. Q.

Jazwire · Apr 22, 2011

I dont see the problem with the ads.

Do you all want irrelevant ads on MacRumors that no one clicks?

So MacRumors doesn't get paid?

High Click Through Ads = Good $ for MacRumors.

If you have 1/2 a brain you wont fall for the advertisers schemes or fail to read the fine print.

Dont like the ads, donate to remove them, if not keep your opinions to yourself and let them run their business.

FloatingBones · Apr 22, 2011

Penny Auction du Jour

Here is the link.

FloatingBones · Apr 22, 2011

Jazwire said:
I dont see the problem with the ads.

Cool! Did you vote in the poll?

Do you all want irrelevant ads on MacRumors that no one clicks?

I want puppies and cute kittens. Hummingbirds would be nice. I saw the first hummer of the season this week.

There's a question mark at the end, but you didn't ask a question. You stated a false dilemma.

Dont like the ads, donate to remove them, if not keep your opinions to yourself and let them run their business.

Those who run MR differ with your opinion. But that's part of the fun: everyone has different opinions.

I object to the ads because they mis-represent themselves as some sort of discount retailer when they are, in fact, gambling sites. But that's already been covered in the thread.

Doctor Q · Apr 22, 2011

The "iPad 2" and "Penny Auction du Jour" ads posted above by FloatingBones should now be gone.

gnasher729 · Apr 24, 2011

FloatingBones said:
The quibids ad is an other deceptive one: it equates shopping at a department store with visiting a gambling website.

The chuzpe of a rip-off site claiming that department stores are ripping you off.

Guys, if an iPad is sold for $23.45 that means they had 2,345 bids for a dollar each, so they made 2,345 dollars plus the $23.45 that they claim was the price.

FloatingBones · Apr 24, 2011

gnasher729 said:
The chuzpe of a rip-off site claiming that department stores are ripping you off.

The funny thing is that the penny auction sites often list a bunch of magazines that have featured articles about them -- but they don't provide links to the articles. I have yet to see a mainstream article with a positive review of penny auctions.

I wonder WTF Consumer Reports is doing. So far, they have said nothing about penny auctions. Fail!

@Jazwire, it certainly is the decision of the site owners to set policy about advertisements. I would continue to frequent the site even if they weren't willing to pull the penny auction ads. I'm grateful that they will pull the ads if we take the time to note them.

It's extraordinary for a site to pay that much attention to the user experience. Bravo, MR crew.

Jazwire · Apr 24, 2011

I did vote in the poll , the majority, that thinks that the ads are either none of my business and/or dont care.

Just curious do you take this approach with every website with PennyAuction ads? As they are literally on every major website on the net.

I dunno maybe you dont visit Yahoo, major news, or any major media website. Perhaps you dont.

Seems pretty think skinned and petty to get worked up over an ad , its not like it wasn't indecent/offensive language or hate filled.

I'm rambling... bottom line.

Just angers me, that people try to bully MR staff around.

Why do we need a poll?

If the MR staff absolutely feels they should be blocked they will block them. They dont need people who are freeloaders (including myself, I dont pay either) telling them how to run their site. Especially when they give to an option out if someone is that greatly offended with the ads. (Which is more than 97% of other websites do.)

Applejuiced · Apr 24, 2011

bigjnyc said:
I don't see why an ad would bother people more than another. unless there is offensive content on the ad whats the difference? Dont like the product or company in the ad then dont click on it. Even the most reputable companies scam and screw consumers over in one form or another trust me.

Exactly, its only an ad.
You dont have to agree with it or the way it does business.
I dont like tampon/pads ads on TV either but sometimes Im stuck looking at them

If you sit there and try to chase and report all those "unapproved" to your standards ads you'd be there all day. I got better things to do with my life.
And Im sure people get ads from all over the place like TV, radio, other websites etc...
If they're going to fall for it they will either way.

Penny auction advertising on MacRumors

Would you like to see penny auction ads disappear from Macrumors?

You betcha! Penny auction ads have no business here.

Meh. I don't care one way or the other.

Keep 'em. If MR pulled every ad that somebody didn't like ...

macrumors 65816

macrumors G5

macrumors 68040

Administrator

macrumors 604

Administrator

macrumors 65816

Suspended

macrumors 604

Administrator

macrumors 65816

Administrator

macrumors 65816

Administrator

macrumors 65816

Administrator

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 65816

macrumors 65816

Administrator

Suspended

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502a

macrumors Westmere

Our Staff