Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Google - Moderated - Information and discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marc ultra who wrote (112)	9/19/2006 1:45:30 PM
From: KeepItSimple	Respond to of 348

Google's #1 advertiser right now is the ringtone industry, almost all of which are simply resellers for an italian company called DadaMobile. The FTC recently forced yahoo and google and the other text ad networks to stop using the word "Free" in their ads.. as in "Free Britney Spears Ringtones!" Turns out that after you enter your cellphone number into the website those ads direct you to, you start getting 20 bucks charged to your bill monthly. This is only disclaimed in tiny light gray unreadable type at the bottom of the screen. Go to webmasterworld.com and read the forums- basically everyone has dropped every other product scheme and now focus exclusively on ringtones because they get paid huge amounts per click. I mean, literally, all the SEO crowd spend every waking moment trying to figure out how to get more ringtone ads in front of people's eyeballs. Now because of the FTC lawyers, the ads no longer can say "Free" but the scammers have simply purchased wildcards like ebay does, so whenever you go to a site it says "Get Wedding Ringtones" or "Get Nasa ringtones" or "Get ice cream ringtones" ... Just like ebay does with their "Looking for XYZ ? Come to ebay!" ads. Anyhow, once the ringtone scam gets shut down for good, google and yahoo are going to lose significant percentages of their revenue. Toss into the fact that the #2 advertiser on the net after the ringtone scammers, is currently housing and home mortgage related firms (that bubble is bursting, in case you hadnt noticed) and it all spells trouble.