Publisher’s note: From July 16 to 22, MIT Technology Review served a fake ad that led to a fake e-commerce site, one that most likely was trying to steal credit-card information. We didn’t mean to; we were duped. We have no way of knowing whether anyone gave the site a credit card number, but we served around 10,000 impressions of the ad. We’re very sorry. We’ve learned from the experience, and have made a number of common-sense changes to make sure we aren’t scammed again.
The scam began with a beguiling e-mail. Our advertising team received an e-mail on July 11 from someone calling himself Nick Sampson, saying (falsely) that he was with an online retailer called Gilt. “I can spend as much as $100,000 per month,” he wrote.
The request struck our team as odd, in that it came directly from the would-be advertiser (in the jargon of the media business, “the client,” and not an agency), and the person was ready to close a sizable deal instantly. Nonetheless, the ad went live on July 16. Soon, another oddity emerged: we weren’t getting click information back from the ad. We suspended it. But after getting an excuse from “Nick” via e-mail, we reinstated it.
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