Yahoo protects online fraudsters, locks out legal ethical expertsLONDON-UK, Friday 20 June 2008: A global war has erupted between online Internetfraudsters and unpaid ethical content providers or legitimate ethical experts.This global war may last much longer than any conventional crusade to route outthe fraudulent cowboys and to save millions of consumers, including under-18 ornot, all over the world. Paralegal eagle and investigative journalist, tyneham(pen-name) reports.A growing number of websites provide useful platforms where consumers can askquestions that are answered instantly by unpaid ethical content providers andexperts.However, this public service has opened up a welter of fresh opportunities foronline fraudsters who advertise on trillions of web pages. The opportunities alsoenable fraudsters to plant questions that have been answered billions of times.Organised fraudsters and their cohorts answer the planted questions promptly toprovide links to fraudulent websites where consumers are required to buy uselesse-books and pay for them by credit/debit cards. The books provide information onhow to get “work from home,” and “data entry” jobs, “paid surveys,” and failedget-rich-quick schemes.Even when consumers don't buy the books, the fraudsters create web visit traffic.That in turn help fraudsters generate, secure and increase advertising, pay to/perclick revenue streams.Valid credit card numbers and PINs are sold for US $15 each. Personal details andemail addresses are sold to other online and offline fraudsters. The data is usedfor a variety of scams such as fraudulent insurance claims, illegal purchases ofprescription drugs, and medical ID theft. All that and more creates extra incomestreams that in turn generates bulk junk emails, phishing and more frauds foryears to come.However, after buying the useless e-books, consumers discover that it containsinformation that is already in public domain, free of charge. After years oftrials, more than 99.9% of consumer discover that there are no real paid jobs,online or offline. This is organised crime.As if that was not bad enough, Yahoo locks out honest, ethical and unpaid contentproviders experts who alert and warn the consumers. Yahoo protected fraudulentadvertisers also get second free bite to sell their wares on the platforms. Yahoolet hundreds of fraudulent links go through to millions of consumers.The scams are helping Yahoo and other Q&A platforms to protect their ad revenuestreams and profits. Free content is provided by unpaid experts who unknowinglygive credence to the platforms. It means profits for the platforms and thefraudsters, and nothing for ethical experts.There is growing, irrefutable and undeniable evidence that Yahoo, the world'snumber 55 on global brand chart, and other such platforms are knowingly protectingand helping Internet criminals, fraudsters and scammers to defraud onlineconsumers, including under-18 youngsters and disable people all over the worldeveryday. At the time of writing this investigative report, the irrefutable andundeniable evidence was still available on thousands of Internet cached pages withlinks to thousands of website servers all over the world.

As you can see, Yahoo Q&A platform has made is too easy for fraudsters get youremail addresses. Just analyse Yahoo Q&A protection rack online and in thisinvestigative report. Remember that fraudsters are increasingly turning fromoffline fraud - such as using fake credit and debit cards in shops - to onlinescams. It is too easy to defraud millions of consumers online where the Q&A pagesare saved or archived for reference by future potential victims. So, one plantedquestion on Yahoo can defraud many consumers this week and the rest in years tocome. That is an excellent motive to plant questions that also help generateresidual income, forever. That is why it is important to put a clear, unremoveablewatermark warning on each Q&A page.The Q&A platforms are increasing their protection racket. They must be made tocomply with UK, EU and US laws. They are not above the laws. They must bepenalised, protect, encourage, reward and pay ethical content providers or honestexperts. Otherwise the platforms will remain dominated by online fraudsters whomust be driven out.It is instructive to observe that Yahoo has millions of advertising placements foronline criminals but does not have placements on those pages to warn millions ofInternet users. Such warning-less search and display ads, and the live Q&Asessions help online fraudsters.The convergence of such online Q&A platforms, is one of the next majordevelopment in the evolution of the rapidly changing online advertising industry.At current monetization rates (June 2008), this is a temping and irresistible US$800 million annual revenue opportunity for Yahoo alone. This would help thecompany generate an estimated up to $450 million in incremental operating cashflow every year. The platforms are set to capitalise on the growth and expansion,helping online fraudsters move forward and benefit in a significant way from livemultiple marketplace alternatives. The fraudsters are a main source of funds toboth deliver financial value to stockholders from search monetization and toinvest in broader strategy to transform display advertising and advance theirstarting point objectives with users.So, in that context alone, it makes commercial sense to lock out ethical expertsin order to protect the ad income platforms by allowing online criminals defraudthe millions of consumers every day, all over the world. The growing frauds, andthe selective lock out of ethical experts as well as free content providers, wouldhelp live Q&A platforms enhance their ability to achieve their goal to growoperating cash flow and profits significantly for the sole benefit of theplatforms and the fraudsters.According to a recent report by US-based Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)http://www.ic3.gov/ , most of the fraudsters are US-based (63.2%), followed by UK(15.3%), and Nigeria (5.7%). The UK would not start gathering statistics onInternet fraud or any other form of e-crime until well into 2009 when the NationalFraud Reporting Centre (NFRC) comes online.In a report in January 2008, for example, Click Forensics found that the overallclick-fraud rate for the online advertising industry was 16.6% in the last quarterof 2007, up from 14.2% for the same period a year earlier. In contextualadvertising networks like Google Adsense and Yahoo! Publisher Network, ClickForensics estimated that 28.3% of clicks were fraudulent, up from 19.2% for lastquarter of 2006.Yahoo click-fraud specialist Reggie Davis, simply ignores and dismiss the volumeof fraudulent clicks on Yahoo Q&A pages, searches and content networks. Davisdownplays the fraud by claiming that click fraud is between 12% and 15% on Yahoo's

search pages and contextual networks. Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google's businessproduct manager for trust and safety, simply repeats his previous admissions thatonly a tiny fraction of Google's clicks are fraudulent. Yahoo and Google don'tallow advertisers to audit and verify their claims and admissions. What have theygot to hide? Google paid US $90 million in March 2007 to settle a class-actionlawsuit by online advertisers over fraudulent clicks.However, it is almost impossible to communicate with the top Yahoo officials(through automated response) to inform them about their malpractice, the fraudsand the scams. However, the highest Yahoo officials in California, including itspresident Sue Decker and CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang, cannot deny knowing abouttheir protection racket and the frauds on their own Q&A platforms. Decker and Yangmust not be allowed to pass the buck to Yahoo India where Yahoo's alleged"customer care" service is based. That enables Yahoo to evade US and EU laws.Yahoo India is an offshore and outsourced kangaroo court that accuses, convictsand executes ethical experts and free content providers within two or three daysto block. The kangaroo court then excludes and locks out ethical content providersand experts. Is Yahoo so desperate for capital? Yahoo chiefs must be madeaccountable for the protect racket.The following example would help show how Yahoo protected fraudsters plant Q&A,and then report ethical experts for alleged violation:Question: Any surveys paid with alertpay or e-gold?Question Details: Free survey sites that cashout with egold or alertpay i specifyALERTPAY and E-GOLD only only surveysDeleted (expert) Answer: “Prudent people, under-18 or not, all over the world,avoid tempting and irresistible money making offers on Yahoo, Craiglist andelsewhere on the Internet. More than 99.9% of such offers are nothing morefraudulent crimes and scams against consumers who are often unpaid; payextortionate bank charges for bounced cheques/checks; earn criminalconvictions/record, and endure custodial sentences. This is just a little legaldisclaimer alert from tyneham to help protect online consumers all over the world.This tyneham alert is in compliance with Yahoo community guidelines and terms ofservice. It may be tested by vested financial interests in UK courts with fullpublishing and broadcasting news reports. This ethical honest tyneham alert maynot be the best answer for planted questions, but in fact it has been voted/chosenas the “best answer” by prudent and law-abiding askers, voters. For furtherinformation see tyneham profile on Yahoo Answers, or search google for “tynehamanswers,” and “Yahoo protects online fraudsters””.The expert answer were deleted by Yahoo, allegedly for “solicitation,” allegedviolation of Yahoo “community” guidelineshttp://answers.yahoo.com/info/community_guidelines.php, and/or Yahoo's terms ofservice http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/How can one classify the public interest warning or alert as “solicitation” oreven “violation”? Is that just an excuse to delete the disclaimer? What makesYahoo protect such obvious frauds? Surely, the guidelines and the terms must bechanged to protect and encourage unpaid experts who warn consumers about potentialfrauds, scams and the consequences.But why change the rules of the old game? Well, this is not rocket science. Let usanalyse the Yahoo question that may be planted by the fraudsters' paid ordefrauded “data entry, copy-paste workers,” dotted around the world. The workersmay be following instructions for online copy/paste or data entry jobs. Theworkers may be participating in global online business opportunities, committing