PC Matic
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@Dashrender said in PC Matic:
And along the lines Scott's mentioning, if you aren't getting the ads directly from the end vendor, you're getting them from a service like Google - so you have little to no control over what's put there either.
Good point. Until you are a huge platform, that's normally how you get ads.
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@Dashrender said in PC Matic:
And along the lines Scott's mentioning, if you aren't getting the ads directly from the end vendor, you're getting them from a service like Google - so you have little to no control over what's put there either.
Most of these type forums don't use Google Ads they choose them individually.
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There are situations where I think that @jason has legitimate concerns, I don't want to downplay that. When you have a platform that doesn't just "display ads" but is actively working on promoting vendors through their own channels, you have a different responsibility. For example, if a forum actively suppresses criticism of a company in order to promote them by removing negative comments, puts pressure on people to post things that are positive or tells moderators to favour an advertiser, you take on a totally different set of responsibilities than if you just show Google AdSense and don't have any connection to what is there.
We all know the Liquid Nitrogen Overclocking story and that involved all of those things. It was an insanely obvious scam (it turned out that even the people taking the money had known) and a lot of money was exchange to get people to cover up the scam to make more money. Basically the forum in question joined in on the scam themselves as they were part of the revenue stream.
But if it had been nothing more than ad placement with no further interactions, they would have been essentially blameless as long as they took it down once someone identified it as an actual scam.
But that case was a full outright scam, like fake company, several arrest warrants issues, actual fraud taking place. This looks different, this is just, I assume, totally garbage software that is targeted at tricking non-technical people into buying something useless.
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This was on TV the other day in the UK.
Someone turned around and asked me "How can they do all of that for that much per year?"
I simply said, they don't.
Be smart. Our security software will keep you safe, but you need to do your part too. Learn more about cyber security through the KnowBe4 training offered FREE of charge with a PC Matic subscription.
KnowBe4 are involved with these guys?...Grief.
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@Breffni-Potter said in PC Matic:
KnowBe4 are involved with these guys?...Grief.
I didn't see that in there. I only see that they include some service from KnowBe4. Reselling something from them and them being involved isn't necessarily the same.
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@scottalanmiller said in PC Matic:
@Breffni-Potter said in PC Matic:
KnowBe4 are involved with these guys?...Grief.
I didn't see that in there. I only see that they include some service from KnowBe4. Reselling something from them and them being involved isn't necessarily the same.
I suppose KnowB4 doesn't have know that these guys are reselling their services... but come on.. really?
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@Dashrender said in PC Matic:
@scottalanmiller said in PC Matic:
@Breffni-Potter said in PC Matic:
KnowBe4 are involved with these guys?...Grief.
I didn't see that in there. I only see that they include some service from KnowBe4. Reselling something from them and them being involved isn't necessarily the same.
I suppose KnowB4 doesn't have know that these guys are reselling their services... but come on.. really?
Even if they know, what does that mean? Best Buy resells HP laptops. It does not mean that HP stands behind them or the claims of the Geek Squad tech.
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Or, to make the most extreme possible example: just because you bottle water does not make you an official representative of God.
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@scottalanmiller said in PC Matic:
Or, to make the most extreme possible example: just because you bottle water does not make you an official representative of God.
LOL that's a pretty big leap!
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It popped into my head as an example, but I think that it illustrates it well. One party puts something on the market, another party leverages that in some way. Even if the one party knows about the other it doesn't mean that they endorse or even have the ability to stop it. But they easily don't know, either. Tons of possibilities.
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@scottalanmiller said in PC Matic:
Just looking at their website, that site has "scam" written all over it. No way that that is something you'd want to install.
Coincidentally, I recently happened across this discussion over at BleepingComputer. So, while it looks like a scam, smells like a scam and even has a scammy-sounding name, it maybe isn't a scam. That said, scam or not, it's certainly not a product I'd use.
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@Brett-at-ioSafe said in PC Matic:
@scottalanmiller said in PC Matic:
Just looking at their website, that site has "scam" written all over it. No way that that is something you'd want to install.
Coincidentally, I recently happened across this discussion over at BleepingComputer. So, while it looks like a scam, smells like a scam and even has a scammy-sounding name, it maybe isn't a scam. That said, scam or not, it's certainly not a product I'd use.
Or maybe they are getting paid off?
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@Brett-at-ioSafe said in PC Matic:
@scottalanmiller said in PC Matic:
Just looking at their website, that site has "scam" written all over it. No way that that is something you'd want to install.
Coincidentally, I recently happened across this discussion over at BleepingComputer. So, while it looks like a scam, smells like a scam and even has a scammy-sounding name, it maybe isn't a scam. That said, scam or not, it's certainly not a product I'd use.
Further down the thread it appears to be show to be unequivocally a scam.
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@Brett-at-ioSafe said in PC Matic:
@scottalanmiller said in PC Matic:
Just looking at their website, that site has "scam" written all over it. No way that that is something you'd want to install.
Coincidentally, I recently happened across this discussion over at BleepingComputer. So, while it looks like a scam, smells like a scam and even has a scammy-sounding name, it maybe isn't a scam. That said, scam or not, it's certainly not a product I'd use.
Or maybe they are getting paid off?
They wouldn't need to be, right? Aren't these the same guys that think "cleaning" a customer's computer is acceptable after an infection? These are the guys that claim that they can, without fail, get a machine cleaned so that you don't have to worry about reinstalling.
I avoid that site since I learned about it. It, too, is a scam in my book. Those kinds of claims are made to support malware by making consumers think that things are safe that are not, just like the PC Matic software does. Two of a kind in that regard.
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@scottalanmiller As I said, it certainly isn't a product I'd use. "Maximizes internet connection speeds." Yeah, right.
