Business Briefs Trojan Horse Program Spews Fake Google Ads | eWeek

Business Briefs Trojan Horse Program Spews Fake Google Ads

Written By
eWEEK EDITORS
eWEEK EDITORS
Jan 9, 2006
1 minute read
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A Trojan horse program is churning out bogus Google ads promoting products Google eschews—gambling, cheap Viagra, girlie photos and adult dating.

The ads, being targeted at small publishers, are identical to Google AdSense ads except that referral graphic buttons are being converted to text, apparently due to a bug in the Trojan, according to the publisher who reportedly discovered the Trojan.

That publisher, Raoul Bangera, told Techshout.com that the noncontextual and risqué content of the ads is what set them apart from regular AdSense ads. According to Techshout, when users click on the fake AdSense ads, they are booted to three successive sites. The users are eventually dumped onto a page with a slew of ads and links to more ads.

Googles legitimate AdSense program works by paying Web site publishers to display content- relevant Google ads on their pages.

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