Black Hat Affiliate Tactics in the Facebook Era

Affiliate marketing is receiving some not so great publicityagain. This time it comes from Rik Ferguson over at TrendMicro blog as he reveals a Facebook Account Upgrade Scam, where fan pages promote a Gold Facebook account upgrade. Of course, there is no such thing as a gold Facebook account.

From Rik Fergusons blog post (bolding by me for emphasis):

So whats the point for the scammer? Well if you follow all the instructions, you first invite all your friends to come and check out this (cough) great deal. Then, if you are credulous enough to click the button, you are informed that in order to access the Account Upgrade page you must complete 1 quick, free survey, different versions of the scam page offer different surveys, but this is where the money is made.

The survey I tested linked... [View Full Article]