Last Updated on: 19th October 2019, 08:30 am
This is either going to help or it’s going to inadvertently make things even worse because they’re still served partly based on page content, but since I’ve caught these ads running on our site among others many, many times I figure I should mention it.
No, Marilyn Denis has not retired so she can spend her time selling skin cream. Neither, I should add, have Shania Twain or Céline Dion, who I’ve also seen mentioned. And while we’re at it, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Connor McDavid have not been kicked out of the NHL for using super secret natural testosterone boosters that they would now like to put in your hands for a low, low price.
These ads, which are presented like shocking, clickbatey breaking news articles, are completely fake and you should think long and hard before either clicking one or doing business with anybody who feels they need to market their product or service this way. I can’t sit here and tell you with any degree of certainty whether or not these specific products are any good, because I haven’t used them. But generally speaking, if somebody has to trick you into looking at his sales pitch, whatever he’s hocking is probably complete shit.
And since I’m sure some of you are wondering, no, we personally can’t stop these particular ads from appearing on our site. We do have some blocking and filtering power, but the folks behind scams like these tend to use a whole lot of domains which makes banishing them to any useful degree virtually impossible. It’s hard enough for extremely well resourced advertising networks like Google’s, which does seem to honestly try to police these things, to keep up with them. So when your team consists mostly of me, there’s not much good to be done trying to police it from this end. Again, the best thing us ordinary folks can do is not engage with these scuzbags. No attention means no money, which is, of course, the entire point of their existence.
Denis’ name and image are being used as click bait for online ads promoting an anti-aging cream that also bill the veteran broadcaster as retired.
The fact is, Denis doesn’t endorsing any product lines, for skin cream or anything else and is urging people not to click on the Facebook and Twitter links.
“I need to speak about this, I’m getting the word out,” said Denis in a Bell Media release. “Because people need to know that I’m doing something about this, to try to stop people from getting suckered in.”
Denis isn’t the only Bell Media personality to have been targeted. Melissa Grelo, CTV Your Morning and The Social co-host, and etalk’s Lainey Lui have been featured in similar scam ads, in addition to celebrities like Kelly Ripa and Dr. Oz.Denis says outside experts have been hired to do investigative work, but finding those behind the online scam is like “playing a game of whack-a-mole.”
“I am not leaving and there is no product line that I am endorsing, so please do not give out your information,” Denis said. “They are scammers. They are sneaky. They play the game. But if no one is engaging with them, then they won’t have a business, and that’s what I want.”