Why is it that companies on the internet are allowed to just lie to people? All those spam emails and pop-up ads... are they legal? Imagine if other places worked that way, like grocery stores for example... imagine if every food company was allowed to just lie flat-out about nutrition information ("sugar-free ice cream!") ("packed with all your daily vitamins and minerals!"), or offer free prizes ("guaranteed gold nugget inside THIS box!") in the packages that are never there. It would be chaos! I know food companies lie by ommision, or try to imply their way to misleading people with little semantic games ("made with 100% juice!" - note 'with'), but it's not even in the same league as my junk mail inbox.

Someone needs to do something about this internet.

Comments

Mary said…
I agree. About every other day I get an email about how my bank account needs me to logon immediately. Someday I'm going to get one that actually mentions a bank I have an account at. I know enough that I don't think I'll be conned, but I feel for people, like the elderly, who are more likely to be. I suppose they're from another country and the FBI can't arrest them.
1:39 AM
Max said…
Very true, Mary. I forget that the young and discerning internet generation is not the target audience for those sorts of scams.

In fact there's a whole industry around exploiting seniors for their retirement money, ranging from spammers to cult-like religious groups to Publishers Clearing House and their fake million-dollar mail cheques.
11:55 PM
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