FYI...

- http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/not-urban-legend-snopes-pushes-zango.html
January 28, 2008 - "I am a big fan of Snopes, and use the service routinely when getting some typical hysterical email from a friend. But for a long time now (probably at least a year), I’ve noticed that they are in bed with Fastclick, which in turn constantly serves one annoying ad on Snopes... I contacted Snopes about six months ago to complain, but they ignored my message. Note that:
1. This is one of only two popups that constantly come up on the Snopes site (the other one is for a registry cleaner, and that’s probably another story when I have time). It's not like a one-off bad popup that happens in a rotation with other popups. These two popups are there practically every time you visit Snopes (see for yourself).
2. This would mean that Snopes is getting paid well for these popups (either pay-per-click or by page views). Advertisers like Zango don’t pay to run ads that don’t get a good response. And likewise, a site like Snopes won’t waste valuable ad inventory on poorly-paying ads. And I firmly believe that the fact that the ads do well is because of Snopes’ credibility. In other words, Snopes is pushing adware because it makes them money. And I believe it’s a lot of money. And that’s not an urban legend. It’s shameful."

(Screenshots available at the URL above.)

FYI...

- http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/update-on-snopes-pushing-adware.html
January 29, 2008 - "Well, it seems the firestorm of protest has had its effect: Snopes (apparently) is no longer pushing Zango. This seems to have changed yesterday evening (the last time I confirmed the popup was at about 4 pm EDT yesterday). There were lots of comments on this one... Again, it’s not like this popup was occurring on some limited basis, or part of a series of ads. This was a consistent campaign that showed up regularly, for a long time (probably over a year). I’m glad Snopes has (apparently) changed it’s position. Now, we have to work on a few other sites... To all of you who helped, thank you. I do think this will make a difference in reducing the amount of adware in the wild..."