Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Amber alert ticker system promoting crapware

Amber alert ticker system promoting crapware

Let's face it.  This blog was not created to be popular.  Hell, I'm not even sure if anyone reads it anymore.  But, one of the things I've enjoyed doing over the past decade is displaying an AMBER ALERT ticker at the top of my page.

I have no idea how often this ticker has been activated in all that time, and I'm almost certain that the ticker on my website never led to anyone being apprehended.  Still, I felt like I was doing a service.

Today, I looked at my blog and saw an advertisement in the Amber Alert ticker.  I've seen messages in the past asking for financial support for the Amber Alert system, and even remember seeing an ad for an offshoot Amber Alert system for pets.  But never, until today, have I noticed blatant ads for totally unrelated services.

The company being promoted was everify[dot]com.  They offer a background check service, which can supposedly identify people with criminal records, outstanding arrest warrants, and even whether the person appears on a sex offender registry.  On the surface, this seems to be a service that many people and businesses could use.

So, I did some research.  The only "reviews" I was able to find were obviously planted, because there wasn't a single negative comment in anything I could find.  NOT ONE NEGATIVE REVIEW.

What I did find, however, was a website that ranks the TRUSTWORTHINESS of businesses.  That website ranked everify[dot]com on several factors, and in every case, this company failed miserably.  So why am I willing to believe a TOTALLY NEGATIVE assessment of the service, while not believing TOTALLY POSITIVE reviews?  Well, I trust the website that provided the negative assessment.  The site is called Web of Trust and I found it remarkable at identifying untrustworthy websites (as reported by visitors to the rated sites).

I intend to write to the AMBER ALERT website creators, voicing my displeasure with their fundraising methods, but for now, I have disabled their ticker on my blog.