No, really, we're serious...

When did it become acceptable to blatantly lie in internet ads? Are we just so desensitized from all the Nigerian Viagra Lotteries that it just washes over us? Is it a default assumption now that all banner ads are written by Russian script-kiddies playing with an exploit they found for unpatched versions of IE5? You expect this kind of crap when you're surfing porn, but guess where this showed up?

My SBCglobal/Yahoo! email account!

I know Microsoft is making noises about buying them out, but are they really that hard up for cash? And to the folks that created this ad: I must say, great job, very cutting-edge of you to avoid all that tired business of letting people know what you're selling. . . I also like the little reverse psychology here: "Hey, let's make it look so much like a scam people will think it can't possibly actually be a scam." Also, nice way to avoid litigation by placing a button "click here to claim" without mentioning what it is the customer patsy is "claiming."

These guys also don't seem all too interested in repeat business. I know the eighth or ninth time I was the 10,000th visitor to my own e-mail account, I started having a little suspicion that maybe it wasn't quite accurate.

Oh, and final thought, if the first line of your ad copy is "This is not a joke," it is probably time to re-think your business model.