I had a quick look... Something doesn't add up here... First up, each question (after the first one) coughs up three adverts at the bottom of the page - click on any of the links, the operator of the web site gets paid for the "referral". If the click-through results in the user buying anything, the web site operator could get further fees up to a double-figure number of dollars. And that assumes that there's no dodgy "click fraud" going on in the background every time you choose an answer. The advertiser providing the links is listed on a lot of anti-spyware sites, for doing dodgy things with "tracking" cookies. SpySweeper doesn't like following their links, that's for sure - and that's generally a bad sign. This flies in the face of the site's Privacy Policy, which also expects YOU to opt-out of tracking by the individual advertisers. Googling around suggests that a typical bulk sack of rice weighs about 50Kg, and you can expect around 2.5 million grains of rice in a 50Kg sack. That's right, all those ad impressions yesterday resulted in all of about twenty-five sacks (1.25 tonnes) of rice being donated. Or put another way, less than one typical truckload. That's a lot of clicks, for a tiny fraction of a typical aid convoy. I'd hazard a guess that the cost of buying the rice is absolutely dwarfed by the ad revenue the site owner is pulling in, even after taking the site operating costs into account. (EDIT: Those will be pretty hefty, given that they've made it to Digg, and lots of bloggers are talking about the site) There's no indication of whether the site is operated by a registered charity, and the domains mentioned are registered to a PO Box in Indiana. John Breen was originally associated with The Hunger Site but that site has a pucker contact address - this new one doesn't. In fact, the ZIP code mentioned in the domain WHOIS record is only associated with PO Boxes. In fact, the whole site is very short of contact details, other than an e-mail address to contact them about advertising. That's also a bad sign. This could be legit, but the lack of info about revenue/donations, the rather terse privacy policy, the advertiser with the overly zealous tracking policy and general lack of contact details would make me very wary of the whole thing. I'd really like to think this is for real, but I have some nagging doubts, and no easy way of getting answers without posing as an advertiser...
First up, each question (after the first one) coughs up three adverts at the bottom of the page - click on any of the links, the operator of the web site gets paid for the "referral". If the click-through results in the user buying anything, the web site operator could get further fees up to a double-figure number of dollars.
And that assumes that there's no dodgy "click fraud" going on in the background every time you choose an answer.
The advertiser providing the links is listed on a lot of anti-spyware sites, for doing dodgy things with "tracking" cookies. SpySweeper doesn't like following their links, that's for sure - and that's generally a bad sign. This flies in the face of the site's Privacy Policy, which also expects YOU to opt-out of tracking by the individual advertisers.
Googling around suggests that a typical bulk sack of rice weighs about 50Kg, and you can expect around 2.5 million grains of rice in a 50Kg sack. That's right, all those ad impressions yesterday resulted in all of about twenty-five sacks (1.25 tonnes) of rice being donated. Or put another way, less than one typical truckload. That's a lot of clicks, for a tiny fraction of a typical aid convoy.
I'd hazard a guess that the cost of buying the rice is absolutely dwarfed by the ad revenue the site owner is pulling in, even after taking the site operating costs into account.
(EDIT: Those will be pretty hefty, given that they've made it to Digg, and lots of bloggers are talking about the site)
There's no indication of whether the site is operated by a registered charity, and the domains mentioned are registered to a PO Box in Indiana. John Breen was originally associated with The Hunger Site but that site has a pucker contact address - this new one doesn't. In fact, the ZIP code mentioned in the domain WHOIS record is only associated with PO Boxes.
In fact, the whole site is very short of contact details, other than an e-mail address to contact them about advertising. That's also a bad sign.
This could be legit, but the lack of info about revenue/donations, the rather terse privacy policy, the advertiser with the overly zealous tracking policy and general lack of contact details would make me very wary of the whole thing.
I'd really like to think this is for real, but I have some nagging doubts, and no easy way of getting answers without posing as an advertiser...
10 grains of rice per question is just ridiculously little. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
