Press Release by eMusic
Wow, check out what Mike Burgess (the MVP behind the ever-popular MVP Hosts file) alerted me to this morning...
"NOTE: It has come to our attention that Uniqads.com, Adtraff.com and Forceup.com have been fraudulently purchasing advertising on eMusic's behalf. These companies are not authorized to act on eMusic's behalf and are distributing malware."
Them's fighting words. eMusic are justifiably upset about the unauthorised advertisements touting their web site which are maliciously coded to redirect viewers to various Winfixer type web sites. But eMusic are certainly not the only victims of such behaviour. Skyauction.com is one web site that immediately comes to mind - unauthorised advertisements touting that site were what was causing the redirects that hit Sensis and soccernet.com and Skyauction has also been quoted as being justifiably upset at the negative impact the unauthorised advertisements have on their site's reputation. I've also seen unauthorised advertisements touting British Airways, and getsafeonline.org, and many other big names (Mike of mikeonads.com has collected quite a few screenshots of such advertisements).
You know, there is a big difference between an advertising network unwittingly hosting a malicious banner advertisement, and being fooled into accepting unauthorised, maliciously coded advertisements and being an active, willing participant in such activities. Is eMusic alleging that Uniqads.com, Adtraff.com and Forceup.com are active participants as distinct to unwitting stooges? Have eMusic been in touch with the company and warned them that they are hosting unauthorised advertisements touting the eMusic web site? If so, what was their response? I think it behooves eMusic, if they are going to allege "fraudulent purchasing" via such a public statement to outline their approaches to the advertising companies, and the companies responses.
As far as I know, it is not standard industry practice for an advertising network to contact the business or web site that is the subject of an advertisement to ensure that the advertisement they plan to host is authorised and legitimate. Perhaps this is something that advertising networks need to start doing but, realistically, it may be a difficult question to answer. I don't profess to be anywhere near an expert in how the online advertising world works, but the impression that I get is that there are so many brokers out there, so much onselling and other carry-on that it may not be a simple matter to pick up the phone, call a company and say "is this advertisement authorised"?