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Tara Carreon
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Location: Tucson, Arizona
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 Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2012 9:27 pm Post subject: MATTHEW INMAN OF "THE OATMEAL" SUCKS! |
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"DON'T MESS WITH MY MOM," by Charles Carreon
http://www.naderlibrary.com/DONTALKABOUTMMOM.FINAL.WAV
| Don't Mess With My Mom, by Charles Carreon wrote: | 
DON'T MESS WITH MY MOM
by Charles Carreon
(Dedicated to Matthew Inman of the Oatmeal)
I'm the pterodactyl killa'
From the City of Tucson
Ya' mess with me baby,
Come and get it on.
There's never been a fight that I backed away from,
So next time remember,
Don't mess with my Mom.
You make fun of my name,
The noble Carreon,
We came here with Cortez,
And our legacy lives on.
The battles that we fight
Are the ones that must be fought.
When the smoke clears, Matt,
Your army will be gone.
Next time remember,
Don't mess with my Mom.
Your allies are the fools
Who cut and paste all day.
They think they're important,
But their anger is impotent.
They say nasty things,
But they don't get paid.
Their ignorance is deep,
So ya' get 'em on the cheap.
Your humor's scatological,
Your mind is pathological.
Did someone drop you on your head,
When you were in your baby-bed?
Did they take away your rattle,
And teach you how to tattle?
Whatever the reason,
You have committed treason
Against decency and sanity,
You're offensive to humanity.
But never fear --
I'm here to liberate you.
There's no chinks in my armor,
So I don't have to hate you.
I raise up the sword
That vanquishes disorder
I place you without passion
In the matter transporter.
You see, winged reptiles
aren't needed here.
What we need is thoughtful people
Who are decent and sincere.
So get behind me, Satan!
You're just a bit of roadkill,
Like the thief of Sex.Com,
Just another fool,
Who thought he was the bomb.
Next time, Mr. Inman,
Don't talk about my Mom. |
| Casey Johnston wrote: | Lawyer Attacking the Oatmeal Shocked by Big Mean Internet's Reaction
by Casey Johnston
June 13, 2012
Trying to Squeeze Money From a Web Cartoonist Will Earn You Some Nasty E-Mails
Artist The Oatmeal's rendition of Carreon's mother attempting to bed a bear.
The Oatmeal/Matthew Inman
The lawyer representing FunnyJunk, a site threatening to sue The Oatmeal for $20,000 for defamation, has expressed bewilderment at the Internet's negative reaction to FunnyJunk's case. "I really did not expect that [The Oatmeal] would marshal an army of people who would besiege my website and send me a string of obscene e-mails," Charles Carreon, FunnyJunk's legal representative, told MSNBC.
The Oatmeal is the site of Internet cartoonist Matthew Inman. Inman wrote in 2011 about his frustrations with FunnyJunk, saying the humor site hosted his content without attribution. FunnyJunk allegedly removed the offending material. One year later, Inman received a letter from Carreon, demanding that he produce a check for $20,000 payable to the order of FunnyJunk, LLC for defaming its operation.
While Inman set out to collect that $20,000 (and redirect it to a pair of causes, bears and cancer), Internet users set about finding Carreon's online contact information and shaming him for his actions. The attorney, who successfully litigated the sex.com case in November 2000, said to MSNBC, "I'm completely unfamiliar really with this style of responding to a legal threat—I've never really seen it before... I don't like seeing anyone referring to my mother as a sexual deviant." (Carreon is referring to Inman's drawing of a woman seducing a Kodiak bear, shown above. Inman later clarified that he intended the bear to be FunnyJunk's mother, not Carreon's.)
We at Ars were, of course, shocked to hear that an unqualified attack on a beloved Internet artist might generate a negative reaction, on the Internet, by fans of that Internet artist. We are further shocked that those fans might express those reactions through other Internet channels to the instigator of that attack, such as through a publicly available e-mail address. "It's an education in the power of mob psychology and the Internet," Carreon told MSNBC. If you were waiting for Carreon's blessing as a force not to be trifled with, Internet, you have it now. |
Last edited by Tara Carreon on Sun Jun 17, 2012 12:08 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Tara Carreon
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Posts: 992
Location: Tucson, Arizona
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Tara Carreon
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Joined: 25 Sep 2008
Posts: 992
Location: Tucson, Arizona
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| Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2012 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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PSYCHO SANTA
THE HEROIC EXPLOITS OF MATT INMAN
A WORK OF PERPENDICULAR FACT
by lofinikita and Cassandra Electra
http://rapeutation.com/
| Psycho Santa, by Charles Carreon wrote: | PSYCHO SANTA
by Charles Carreon
(Dedicated to Matthew Inman of the Oatmeal)
http://www.american-buddha.com/chaspoet.psychosanta.htm
Well he used to be a pterodactyl up in the sky,
Tearin' people's heads off,
and eatin' their eyes,
But now he's done a change-up,
Got a new disguise --
All Points Bulletin: Look out for this guy!
He's a psycho-Santa with a big bag of tricks,
Ringin' a bell, and beggin' for clicks,
Psycho Santa got a itty bitty stick,
Psycho Santa, don't fall for his schtick.
Particularly dangerous to boys and girls
Who play with computers in the virtual world
He claims to be the hero of the human race,
A relief from their cubicles and bookin' their face.
He's a psycho-Santa with a big bag of tricks,
Ringin' a bell, and beggin' for clicks,
Psycho Santa got a itty bitty stick,
Psycho Santa, don't fall for his schtick.
His prehistoric origin's a mystery --
Did he escape from the lavatory?
Was he made by the Pentagon and NSA
A living drone that shoots mind rays,
Makin' zombies of his followers --
Internet slaves!
He's a psycho-Santa with a big bag of tricks,
Ringin' a bell, and beggin' for clicks,
Psycho Santa got a itty bitty stick,
Psycho Santa, don't fall for his schtick.
When cornered he will strike back with a vicious blow,
There is no depth to which he will not go.
Do not attempt to apprehend --
Type "King Kong," then hit Send.
He's a psycho-Santa with a big bag of tricks,
Ringin' a bell, and beggin' for clicks,
Psycho Santa got a itty bitty stick,
Psycho Santa, don't fall for his schtick.
He can revert to his original form at will.
X-Men got nothin' he can't kill.
Only a simian of similar size
Can pluck the Pterodactyl out of the skies.
He's a psycho-Santa with a big bag of tricks,
Ringin' a bell, and beggin' for clicks,
Psycho Santa got a itty bitty stick,
Psycho Santa, don't fall for his schtick. |
"PSYCHO SANTA BOOTLEG VERSION," by Charles Carreon
http://www.naderlibrary.com/psychosantasong2.wmv |
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Tara Carreon
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Joined: 25 Sep 2008
Posts: 992
Location: Tucson, Arizona
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| Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 12:27 am Post subject: |
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| David Thier wrote: | Funnyjunk Lawyer Carreon Isn't Afraid of The Oatmeal
by David Thier
Forbes.com
6/15/12
Attorney Charles Carreon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The story so far: Matt Inman, AKA The Oatmeal, complains about Funnyjunk.com using his comics without permission. Intellectual property lawyer Charles Carreon sends him a letter asking for $20,000 as recompense for this “defamation.” Instead, Matt Inman sends him a letter explaining why he’s not going to do that, raises more than $140,000 for charity, and draws a comic insinuating that Funnyjunk’s collective mother would not be entirely unhappy about making love to a Kodiak bear. Charles Carreon finds himself at the center of an internet firestorm.
When I talked to Carreon last night, however, he didn’t seem the least bit fazed by all the negative attention he’s been getting throughout the internets, or even the more aggressive incursions onto his Twitter account or WordPress site. In fact, he seemed excited about this bizarre new world he had stumbled into. For him, the Funnyjunk stuff is old news – this is about himself, Matt Inman, and the great wide internet.
In his 20 years as a lawyer, he says, he’s written hundreds of letters like the one he sent Inman, but the response to this one was unique.
“So someone takes one of my letters and takes it apart. That doesn’t mean you can just declare netwar, that doesn’t mean you can encourage people to hack my website, to brute force my WordPress installation so I have to change my password. You can’t encourage people to violate my trademark and violate my twitter name and associate me with incompetence, with stupidity, and douchebaggery,” he says. “And if that’s where the world is going I will fight with every ounce of force in this 5’11 180 pound frame against it. I’ve got the energy, and I’ve got the time.”
It’s a bold notion, saying that you’ve got as much time and energy as the internet.
He compares Inman’s charity campaign to when people would sell tickets to throw balls at women being accused of witches in a dunking tank. Money for charity is raised, of course, but the witches aren’t in on it. He may have a very difficult time proving that Inman “instigated attacks,” as he said on his website, but he’s certain he can find some legal recourse for what’s going on right now – “California code is just so long, but there’s something in there about this,” he says.
Carreon is mostly fascinated about plumbing the depths of internet rage, and he’s diving in. He says he takes the time to respond to hate mail, but marvels at the extent of the language people use.
“What I see is a world that is transforming before my eyes, and I’m very fortunate to be at the forefront of a lot of technical development, and you can’t learn anything being timid,” he says.
“My hero is Cyrano de Bergerac, and he said that he’d rather have an enemy than kiss ass, just to sum it up,” he continued. “I welcome the opportunity to confront legally the misuse of a new technology.”
This bizarre saga may be just beginning. |
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Tara Carreon
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Joined: 25 Sep 2008
Posts: 992
Location: Tucson, Arizona
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:39 am Post subject: |
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WANTED: FOR IMPERSONATING A CHARITY
MATT INMAN
$100,000 REWARD
(BALLOON 1: "FIGHT CANCER")
(BALLOON 2 "LOVE BEARS")
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Tara Carreon
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Joined: 25 Sep 2008
Posts: 992
Location: Tucson, Arizona
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Mike Masnick Retard Wannabe Lawyer Writer at TechDirt ejaculates wrote: | | "Carreon tries to claim that these images actually incite Inman's followers into action: 'Inman’s followers are by and large technologically savvy young people eager to follow the latest trend, who embrace Inman’s brutal ideology of tearing you a new asshole.' Seriously? Carreon is literally arguing that fans of a silly comic with cartoonishly ridiculous violence leads them to 'embrace' this 'brutal ideology?' Carreon really ought to spend more time online. Carreon repeatedly makes incredibly weak connections between Inman's cartoons, his online persona and the later hatred directed his way, but without any actual evidence." |
It isn't even theoretical that Inman has a nasty mind and then does nasty actions. His cartoons prove his nasty mind, and his nasty actions are proved by his attempts to destroy our and our client's business. So they're connected. There's an obvious cause and effect relationship. History is full of evidence of the connection between hate speech and hate action.
What is also not theoretical is the racist effectiveness of the Nazi propaganda against the Jews. "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," Henry Ford's "The International Jew," and cartoon books like Elwira Bauer's "Trust No Fox on His Green Heath and No Jew on His Oath," were all means of spreading anti-semitism. They were used as a justification for the Holocaust and innumerable pogroms against Jews around the world.
Who in their right mind could say that there is no connection between thought and action except for a sneaky, slimy fascist?
These Techdirt nazi scumbags are doing to Charles what they did to the Jewish lawyers in Nazi Germany. Accusing him of greed and being responsible for the entire economic mess that our country is in. I mean, that is crazy! No group of people deserves to be so wholesaledly condemned, unless they are a criminal organization like the Mafia. I don't even believe in groups! Give every individual identity, dignity, human rights, and freedom.
In addition to working for himself, Charles is working for You the People on this one, because who in the world would want this to happen to them? It's a very, very bad thing that's happening on the Internet right now to us, and it could happen to you. They're even threatening our children. One girl was so violent and threatending, said she was going to make my daughter lose her job, that she had to take the entire conversation to her HR manager. These people are BAD, BAD PEOPLE, these Matt Inman people. They are true Internet terrorists. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't involve a lot of the Anonymous people. They got this energy through the Occupy Movement. Which just goes to show you how good that whole thing was!
| Trust No Fox On His Green Heath and No Jews on His Oath wrote: | The Jewish Lawyer
Just as children have their fights,
Grown-ups have their quarrels, too.
Parents judge in children’s squabbles,
Judges settle grown-ups’ disputes.
A good lawyer must before the judge
Lay bare all the details of the case
When the trial once begins.
The lawyer gets his money.
So it is in the whole wide world...
Our farmer Michael goes to town.
He’s got a date with the sharp attorney.
See him in the sketch I’ve drawn,
With handsome wife in fine attire.
Next them the lawyer may be seen,
He’s looking very poor and mean.
Just now his trade is very slack,
From farmer Michael he expects a whack!
To the farmer he makes a plea:
“Dear rich Michael be kind to me.
Couldn’t you bring me butter, wine,
Flour and eggs? That would be fine!
Just give me time with this tricky suit;
We’ll win the case and money to boot!”
Here’s good prospect, I surmise,
But all he said was a pack of lies.
The peasant folk from Dummelsbrumm
Believe it all: they are so dumb!
They bring him every kind of food.
And, Boy! that lawyer’s feeling good.
The end is sad to this long tale:
The farmer had to go to court,
So long the Jewish lawyer fought,
Primed with the farmers butter and eggs.
Now round and plump and plump and round,
Jew lawyer weighs 240 pound.
Only when there was nothing left
Did, strangely enough, the trial end.
The farmer, true, had won the case;
Now he wonders with long face
Who his goods and money took.
They were stolen all by the Jewish crook. |
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Tara Carreon
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Joined: 25 Sep 2008
Posts: 992
Location: Tucson, Arizona
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Anonymous Coward at TechDirt wrote: | In the grand scheme of useful professions I used to consider the un-fireable federal civil servant to be essentially the dead end of productivity, the gutter of the American workforce, a valid reason the federal government is ruining our currency with waste and spending explosions...
But really, it's people like Carreon who are the worst of the worst. The American economy would likely be going gangbusters if the patent system hadn't been transmogrified into a system of property ownership via legal fight by lawyers such as him. This infestation of trolls and vultures has turned the creative process of the American economy into their own personal b*tch through threats and lawsuits. The creativity of the free people of this earth wouldn't be hamstrung by scum like this if they didn't have to look over their shoulder any time they feared having their creativity stolen and themselves muscled out of the industry by those with money and legal staff via patents that are too vague, copyright enforcement that should not apply, and trademark fights that are baseless.
You are scum, Charles Carreon. You contribute nothing to society. Your ego and greed are the reason millions are out of work right now. You are a contemptible butt baby that managed to live from out of the anus of mankind, polluting our lives with pre-restraint of our own imaginations and paranoia for those who have already created beautiful things. If I had 10+ billion dollars I would try to forcibly use you as a space monkey for early colonization of Mars, at least then we'd get valuable data out of your pathetic existence. |
Both sides of Charles' family, the Ainsa/Anzas and the Carreons, were Spanish Conversos. The Carreon name is on the list online. Ainsa, on the other hand, his mother's surname, is also a town in Basque Spain. When Spanish Jews converted to Catholicism, in order to discard their Jewish surnames, they often took the name of their town, and thus their surnames are also "place names." Thus, it is quite likely that Charles is genetically Jewish from both sides of his family.
The Ainsa family also had the typical southwestern U.S. tradition of mysteriously refusing to eat pork. That is something that is said to be the vestiges of Jews fleeing not only from Spain to Mexico, but then, when the Inquisition also took effect in Mexico, they further fled to northern New Spain, into New Mexico, and what is now Arizona.
The Ainsas also attained great prominence as a wealthy family in San Francisco before the San Francisco earthquake and fire. Jose Ainsa was a member of the Crab expedition that ended in the incredible Caborca massacre, and his story is a matter of legend. And if we're looking for family pride, Jose Ainsa refused to leave Mexico before he was given an apology for being arrested as a member of the Crab expedition. Everyone else was killed and he was the only one left alive because he was so handsome and well spoken that the daughter of a prominent family fell in love with him, and begged the governor to pardon him. And he was pardoned, but he still refused to leave Mexico until he got an apology, at which point his friends bundled him up and carried him back to San Francisco. See "Hey Dude, Where's My Silver Mines?" by Charles Carreon
http://www.naderlibrary.com/AZ.heydudesilver.htm |
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Tara Carreon
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Joined: 25 Sep 2008
Posts: 992
Location: Tucson, Arizona
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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| TDR of TechDirt wrote: | | "He held a position of no importance. He was a lowly parasite, a zero. A piece of sputum swirling around the toilet bowl of life. He was like the security guard at the front gate who thinks of himself as head of the corporation. And so, when this dispute with the Oatmeal arose, Charles Carreon went over the edge. It was his case, ergo, his pride. I ask the court to look at this man, this sad man, this pathetic man, this joke of a man. A man who sat and failed his mental health exam on no less than fourteen occasions. A man so petty and small-minded, he would while away his hours writing threat letters for defendants he hadn't even met yet. A man who commanded as much love and respect from his fellow human beings as Long John Silver's parrot. An overzealous lawyer with a Napoleon complex. Who would ask this man to represent them in a court of law? Only a yogurt." |
These phaggotish, conspiratorial, childish, dorkish, baseless, mindless, shameful, dumb, aggressive, jealous, reprobate, obsessed, mad, clueless, shockingly delusional, completely lost and in trouble, bottom-of-the-barrel, short-sighted, dumb-fuck, ranting, Un-American, contemptible, obnoxious, embarrassing, incompetent, bizarre, constipated, bankrupt, hypocritical, stupid, fearful, carnivorous, wolverine, ranting, foaming at the mouth, bullying, lying, paranoid, no-better-than-the-mafia, smeghead, scumbag, cretinous, lazy, delusional, demented, narcissistic, pathological, extortionistic lunatic, thuggish drama-whores, poised on the edge of a precipice, hoisted by their own petard, their holy fucking shitballs burning inside a biplane careening toward the Statue of Liberty, rhinos raping chinchillas dressed up in unicorns' undergarments, who deserve every bad thing that happens to them, having to learn their lessons the hard way, and who I wouldn't even piss on if they were on fire (they believe in name-calling at TechDirt) claim that these types of statements are not actionable because they aren't "false facts," just "satire." Where is the dividing line? |
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Tara Carreon
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Posts: 992
Location: Tucson, Arizona
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Another Anonymous Coward at Techdirt wrote: | I hope to god that you're a child, because otherwise, you seem to have some quite profound issues. The thought of you driving a car, voting, or god forbid, raising children scares me.
It is a fact that Funnyjunk was removing the attribution from Matt Inman's work in an attempt to drive ad revenue. (This is presumably because nobody who works for Funnyjunk has any actual creativity or talent to draw their own damn cartoons.) When Inman rightfully complained about this (the removal of the copyright), then rather than do the right thing, Funnyjunk began to behave as if they were the ones who were being wronged. This escalated to the point that Funnyjunk's nutcase-for-hire, Carreon, tried to bully Inman into paying him $20,000 (for what? Compensation to Funnyjunk for suffering the indignity of being called thieves, when they were caught stealing?) This is when Inman went public on this and Carreon went into conniptions, and started to have what seems to be some kind of mental breakdown.
The above is indisputable, but allow me to offer my opinion as well. For people like Funnyjunk and Carreon, lying and bullying is just their modus operandi - they do this day in, day out. They're so used to people rolling over and appeasing them, or just giving up and walking away, that they are genuinely upset that Inman has called them on their bullshit. These people are no better than the Mafia. I wouldn't do business with them - I wouldn't even piss on them if they were on fire. But the whole world can now see them for the reprobates that they are. If they do end up damaging their careers (if aggregating unattributed cartoons even qualifies as a career), then good. The only thing they can do to make amends is to apologize at the very least, and maybe match Inman's charity contributions. They brought this on themselves and they deserve every last moment of it. |
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Tara Carreon
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Posts: 992
Location: Tucson, Arizona
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Michael Pollitt wrote: | How to get online advertising for free: Adding hard-to-see tags to viral widgets worked well for one developer, but how ethical are his methods?
by Michael Pollitt
The Guardian, Wednesday 13 February 2008
Matthew Inman may be a genius. Or he may be a fiend. What the Seattle-based web developer and online marketer has done is figure out a way to get people to advertise his sites without paying them. What's even smarter is that he's got the people who search engines rank most highly to do the advertising: bloggers and social networkers.
It works like this. Inman devises a free quiz, which appears on some webpage. You take it - answering perhaps a dozen arcane questions about Star Trek. At the end, you're presented with a badge or widget for your blog, website or social networking page; there's also the option of some HTML code that can just be copied and pasted in to any page's source.
Tucked away
But tucked away within the HTML code that puts the badge or widget on your site - and unseen by human readers of the blog, because the badge or widget obscures it - is a link to an entirely different site. Search engine spiders spot the link, see that many bloggers seem to be pointing towards it and raise its page rank, producing high search results for certain keywords (also in the HTML) such as "cash advance".
"About a year ago I built a free dating website [Mingle2]," says Inman, who previously worked for a search marketing company. "Unless I could get users to sign up I was dead in the water - a dating site without dates is pretty much useless."
At first, he tried creating linkbait to get his site noticed. That's not as sinister as it sounds: linkbait means interesting content on a website which baits visitors to place links to it from their websites. "I created a few of these linkbait pieces and they gained quite a bit of traffic, but I still wasn't getting many signups," Inman says. "Eventually I created the 'how geek are you?' quiz and added a link to the quiz badge that said 'free online dating' and linked to my homepage."
As his quiz badge spread across the internet like influenza, Inman's dating site began ranking at Google for "free online dating", and people started to sign up. He claims to have generated nearly a quarter of a million links in four months, eventually ranking number one for such searches on Google. Six months and 2 million visitors later, Mingle2 was bought by JustSayHi.com, another free dating website, which is now Inman's employer.
The original geek quiz has been followed by more than 80 quizzes, badges, blog widgets and blog bumper stickers, attracting up to 175,000 visits per day to JustSayHi's blog widget section. Inman was also responsible for the Blog Readability Test, hosted on criticsrant.com. As a viral widget, it's been picked up by tens of thousands of people.
Google views things differently. The alt attribute tag in the HTML ought to be used for a meaningful description of the image but has keywords - like "cash advance" - instead. A small visible text link - such as "online payday loans" - points to cashadvance1500.com. Search engines now see many inbound links to the loans site which ranks highly for its keywords. And criticsrant.com gains too.
Is there something fiendish going on? Who benefits? "Criticsrant.com and cashadvance1500.com are both owned by NextInternet which is the venture capitalist/incubator that funds us," Inman says. "Cross-linking and cross-promoting is something companies with multiple websites do all the time."
The plan worked well, especially when the Blog Readability Test was picked up by Wired's Underwire blog. However, Inman points out that his work is used voluntarily, and that nobody is paid to do so.
"We created a piece of content that webmasters and bloggers really liked. We provide them some suggested HTML code to make it easier to share," Inman says. And those links to cashadvance1500.com? "The links we put in the code are completely visible. Webmasters are free to remove them, change the code," he says.
Search engine optimisation - the real, if disguised, objective of the exercise - offers good and bad techniques. Google's quality guidelines advise against the latter: "Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings," Google says.
Link schemes that increase page rank are also disapproved of. However, Google often won't take action on a single site, preferring to "improve the algorithm to spot all sites of a similar nature". (Sites suspected of breaking the guidelines may be reported at here.)
The Guardian showed Google some of Inman's work. "Widgets that are distributed with a link back to the site that created the widget are fine," it says. "However, going a step further and selling links to third parties is against our quality guidelines. Sites that employ or distribute such widgets may risk losing rankings." Inman's response? "We're not selling links to anyone. We own or have very close partnerships with all the websites who we are targeting in those quiz badge links. If the widgets come with a bit of advertising attached I don't see it as being too terrible."
As the links to the sites are visible in the code and displayed on screen, it's not surprising that Inman admits that a "huge percentage" are removed. But enough survive to make his job worthwhile."I could adjust my badge code to easily hide those links," Inman says. "Instead, I keep them out in the open."
Using Yahoo's Site Explorer, Danny Sullivan, a search engine guru and editor-in-chief for SearchEngineLand.com, found more than 150,000 inbound links to cashadvance1500.com. "I think putting an entirely off-topic link next to a graphic is pushing it," he says.
The Guardian emailed bloggers who had published the Blog Readability Test with its links intact. Tony Hillerson, a software architect from Colorado, seems unperturbed. "I did notice that there was an ad there and I didn't mind, since I thought it was funny," Hillerson says. "In that context, I really doubt they got any clicks. All in all, it was funny, and the price to pay was to have these guys get a few possible clicks off of me, so I don't mind."
'Offending code'
But Stephen Sherlock in Massachusetts didn't realise what was happening until we told him. Now, somewhat annoyed, he's removed the "offending code" - the link to cashadvance1500.com. "I don't like those who game the system. I'll be much more careful with the next opportunity to participate in a meme like this," he says.
Dan Thornton, a community marketing manager for Emap and editor for Disposable Media, innocently added the test to his blog. He says: "If I'd examined the HTML I definitely would not have included the link on my page, and would have publicised the fact that it's a scam.
"Hiding link code in a widget like this is basically using the same methods as you would use to spread a virus, and while this is essentially just to aid someone's Google ranking, the fact they felt they had to hide it in such a way makes me a little annoyed."
Inman says: "This is just a clever spin on linkbaiting that gives me a competitive edge. Placing links on websites to aid in search marketing efforts is nothing new." Yet the dividing line between fiendish money-making or clever marketing may never have been narrower. |
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