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Tuesday, 27 November 2012

How PRWeb Helps Distribute Crap Into Google & News Sites

?What?s the use of PRWeb?,? tweeted Megan McCarthy of Reuters, trying to digest how that service ended up circulating a fake Google acquisition story. Come along, Megan and others, and I?ll explain one of the sorriest uses, getting crap into Google News and out into news sites.

For those who somehow missed today?s big tech news, PRWeb ran a press release saying that WiFi provider ICOA was being?acquired?by Google for $400 million. Plenty of outlets carried the news, until denials from both parties started circulating.?Instead, the release?appears to have been written by someone trying to pump up ICOA?s stock.

It?s a big embarrassment for PRWeb, which has now issued its own statement?on the matter:

PRWeb transmitted a press release for ICOA that we have since learned was fraudulent. The release was not issued or authorized by ICOA. Vocus reviews all press releases and follows an internal process designed to maintain the integrity of the releases we send out every day. Even with reasonable safeguards identity theft occurs, on occasion, across all of the major wire services. We have removed the fraudulent release and turned the matter over to the proper authorities for further investigation.

Others will delve into what Vocus ? the company that owns PRWeb ? does to supposedly ensure that someone who says they?re posting news on behalf of a company really is representing that company. I?m going to focus instead on the idea that PRWeb is apparently reviewing all press releases to ensure the ?integrity? of them. That will help explain why, in this day when any company can instantly issues press releases, a service like PRWeb still exists.

This Is Integrity?

It?s all about distribution. In the past, you?d get a press release out and hope newspapers might pick up the story, often using the release as a basis for writing their own stories ? ones that might be fact-checked, or sourced with others, or get turned into something other than a promotional item.

Instead, with PRWeb and other services, you can get whatever you want published and distributed?verbatim?into a wide range of news sources. To illustrate this, let?s start with some published press releases that should all have the required integrity promised by PRWeb.

We?ll begin with a search for releases on the important news topic of viagra:

I?m going to focus on the third release listed, one headlined, ?How to Buy Drugs ? Lowest Price Viagra, Buy Levitra Viagra ? Online Pill Store,? as you can see below:

There?s so much to love in this release. My favorite part is probably the pullout quote, ?Levitra Buy Viagra.? But also, apparently the online pharmacy is both ?trustworthy? and able to sell prescription drugs without customers needing a prescription. I guess that?s because it?s a ?licensed and legal European??pharmacy, which is pretty clear given that big American flag and ?American quality? logo in the press release image, along with a?Canadian?maple leaf and the words ?Canadian Online Pharmacy.?

I have no reason to doubt all of this, to doubt the claims at all, because as you can see from the PRWeb statement, this release was reviewed to ensure it had the right ?integrity? that PRWeb apparently feels it needs to maintain with its service.

Distribution Time!

Once the release was posted, it was then distributed to a range of outlets that PRWeb helpfully itemizes, including Google News and, if you paid extra, through the Associated Press and thus to news outlets like the New York Times to The Oregonian:

As it turns out, the Viagra release above didn?t make it into Google News, perhaps because only the ?Standard? package of $159 was purchased. Google News and news search engines seem to require going up to the ?Advanced? package for $199.

Injecting Integrity Into Google News

That?s OK, we can see how even a release that isn?t directly distributed on PRWeb to Google News can still pollute it, in the ?how to buy viagra??search below in Google News:

All those sites marked ?Hacked? are Google News sources where some or all of the entire article that Google News saw, when it visited the site, was completely different than what the actual article was about. If you?re wondering why Google?s ?Penguin? spam fighting update hasn?t caught this, the answer is likely two-fold:

Penguin is applied to Google Web Search, rather than Google News
Google News is radically screwed-up

There?s an entire separate article we?ll get to eventually on how the relevancy of Google News seems to have gotten worse recently, with stories being surfaced that can be woefully out-of-date. The fact that all these hacked sites are showing up is just one sign that perhaps Google News needs more attention than it has been getting from Google.

Postscript: Technically, the Penguin update was aimed at fighting spam, not hacking attempts. That?s a bigger reason why Penguin isn?t having an impact on the hacking within Google News. But then again, the people hacking these web sites are doing so with the intent of spamming Google?s results. So, I still count it as a disappointment that you see so much of this happening.

Injecting Integrity Into News Publishers

But let?s move on to that ?News Publisher? item. That, supposedly, is a story from the Houston Chronicle called ?Levitra Buy Viagra.? It was indeed published by the Houston Chronicle, and it was a legit story in the sense that the paper wasn?t hacked. Rather, it?s a PRWeb distributor:

It looks to be exactly the same press release, from the same company, that I mentioned above. I haven?t done a word-by-word match, but at the very least, it?s virtually?identical. Oh, there is one difference. This release was published at the end of October, rather than the end of November. I guess there was that much change with the company that it made sense to issue the same release again just a month later.

Try doing searches for ?lowest price viagra? or ?online pill stores,? and you can see similar things to what I?ve described above happening.

?But wait,? I hear you say, ?No one searches for such things in Google News!? Maybe. Maybe not. But they search for many other things, both in Google News and in Google, where news results may appear. Say, for example, ?vitamin injections,? which generates these results on Google News:

Plenty of news coverage on the topic from the San Francisco Chronicle. Er, make that from the San Francisco Chronicle running PRWeb press releases.

Injecting Integrity Into Bing & Yahoo

It?s not just Google, of course, that gets infected by this madness. Here?s the same search, this time at Bing:

Bless, at least Bing gives me an actual news story up top, sadly from the Daily Mail, but this is Daily Mail fare. But after that, it?s PRweb distribution taking over. I particularly like the stories tagged as being from Yahoo. This is a PRWeb twofer win!

You see, the PRWeb ?stories? on vitamin injections got distributed to Yahoo (here?s one of them), where they became available to those searching on Yahoo News. But in turn, they also became fodder that Bing News carried.

The Legit Way To Buy Links

I haven?t even gotten into the other aspect of why people buy on PRWeb, which is to get links. Links are still an important ranking factor for search engines. Buying a press release through PRWeb is an easy and legit way to effectively buy links, a way that Google doesn?t penalize you for.

Postscript: Doing a little more digging, it appears that the head of Google?s web spam team, Matt Cutts, specifically said way back in 2005 that links from PRweb don?t carry credit. Of course, there are plenty of people who might assume they still do. It?s not like there?s any easy-to-spot notice informing people that Google discounts these links. And the ?Advanced Package? that PRweb pitches as being ?search-optimized? has ?anchor text links? as a selling point.

Fake News About Google In Google

By the way, today?s fake press release that Google had to deny ironically got?visibility?through Google itself. That fake release generated stories that assumed it was true, and around 12:15pm ET today, when the denial stories were picking up, Google was still giving visibility to the incorrect stories:

Bing, on the other hand, got it right with the denial stories showing up.

Monday, 26 November 2012

New developed drug kills cancer cells for good | Firstpost

London: Aflibercept, a new drug, practically tricks tumours into passivity by flipping molecular switches in cancer?s structure and making them as good as dead.

Trials conducted in the UK, involving more than 1,400 patients, some with advanced bowel cancer, are showing positive results with the novel drug, where patients are reporting ?significant? extension of life.

Pic used for representational purposes only.

Aflibercept had a ?statistically significant survival benefit? compared to conventional drug regimes treating bowel cancer that had spread after initial treatment, the Journal of Clinical Oncology reported.

Rob Glynne Jones, Macmillan clinical lead for gastrointestinal cancer at Mount Vernon Hospital in Northwood, Middlesex, said: ?The trial results were positive.?

?Around 10,000 patients a year die from bowel cancer and most of them are having some form of chemotherapy so it is theoretically applicable to those. I am sure this drug will have a research programme and they will be extending it to all other cancers,? said Jones, according to the Daily Mail.

Aflibercept is administered as a 30-minute infusion alongside chemotherapy. It is available in the US, and European approval is expected soon.

IANS

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Source: http://www.firstpost.com/fwire/new-developed-drug-kills-cancer-cells-for-good-535970.html

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Andrew W.K. Nixed By State Dept. as Cultural Ambassador

Singer, rocker, free-form motivational speaker, and general party dude Andrew W.K. caused a stir in the music world by claiming the U.S. State Department had made him a cultural ambassador to the Middle East.

Unfortunately for rockers and partiers worldwide, it won't be happening.

W.K., whose given name is Andrew Wilkes-Krier, posted to his website announcing the State Department had invited him to travel to Bahrain in December to "promot[e] partying and world peace":

The US Department of State in partnership with the US Embassy in Manama, Bahrain, has invited Andrew to visit the Middle East to promote partying and positive power. In the tradition of the American Jazz Ambassadors who traveled the world in the mid 20th century as examples of American culture and spirit, Andrew has been invited by the State Department to travel to the Middle Eastern country of Bahrain and share his music and partying with the people there. Andrew will begin his journey sometime in December, 2012 and will visit elementary schools, the University of Bahrain, music venues, and more, all while promoting partying and world peace.

Andrew says: "This is a tremendous invitation. I'm very thankful to the Department of State for giving me the opportunity to visit a place I've never been before. And I feel very privileged and humbled by the chance to represent the United States of America and show the good people of Bahrain the power of positive partying. I can hardly wait for this adventure!"

But a State Department spokeswoman on Monday called the plans a "mistake."

"We had a Bahraini entity that approached the embassy about co-sponsoring a visit by this guy, who I take it is pretty popular there in Bahrain. That was initially approved, and then when more senior management at the embassy took a look at this, the conclusion was that this was not an appropriate use of U.S. government funds," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters at a briefing.

"I think the conclusion was when they looked at the body of his work that we didn't need to be part of this invitation," Nuland said. "There may have been some preliminary conversations with him. But he is not going to be going to Bahrain on the U.S. government's dime."

Andrew W.K. made a name for himself with the 2001 album "I Get Wet," which featured metal-inspired pop-rock songs almost exclusively about partying. W.K. later hosted a show on MTV2 in which he received letters from troubled fans and attempted to help with their problems. He currently hosts the Cartoon Network show "Destroy Build Destroy."

W.K. has made a career of promoting the idea of partying, explaining it as a life ethos in free-form motivational speeches, where he stresses positive thinking and self-empowerment through partying and rock music.

The singer isn't taking the State Department rebuke so well.

He posted an update to his website on Monday, including a promotional flyer for his Bahrain appearance bearing red, block letters reading "CANCELED BY THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT." Read Andrew W.K.'s update:

BREAKING NEWS: After a year of planning and development, the US State Department has unexpectedly canceled their plans for Andrew's trip to the Middle East this week, after changing their minds and deciding that it was "a mistake and not appropriate." More information and a statement from Andrew, coming soon.

The singer also tweeted: "They can cancel our party in the Middle East, but they can never cancel the party in our hearts. #StayPositiveStayParty."

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Activist Post: Surveillance Grid Moves Ahead With VoIP Spy ...

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

Once upon a time, privacy was not a word that was foreign to the English language. In that time long ago, police and governments would often have to manufacture an incident (like 9/11) in order to successfully push for more legal powers to monitor private conversations or access data without a warrant.

However, in 2012, the premise of the invasion of privacy is no longer necessary. Now, the debate itself is a foregone conclusion that agencies will be granted greater power to surveil the populace. The only question taken into consideration is what might be the best method that these organizations can utilize in order to take advantage of these coming powers.

Such is now the case with various Internet chat services like Skype and other companies or products utilizing Voice over IP technology, which law enforcement complains makes the task of eavesdropping on ?suspects?? communications much more difficult.

As explained by MassPrivateI in the article, ?Police want to covertly eavesdrop (spy) on voice over IP chats,? Voice over IP software allows for individuals to ?make phone calls over the Internet by converting analog audio signals into digital data packets.?

The article continues by stating,

Because of the way the packets are sent over the Web, sometimes by a 'peer-to-peer' connection, it can be complex and costly for law enforcement agencies to listen in on them. This has previously led some countries, like Ethiopia and Oman, to block VoIP services on 'security' grounds. In the United States and Europe, too, VoIP has given authorities a headache. The FBI calls it the going dark problem' and is pushing for new powers to force Internet chat providers to build in secret backdoors to wiretap suspected criminals? online communications.

In other words, law enforcement is irate that a technology exists that does not allow them to easily and illegally monitor the private conversations of American citizens. This, of course, ignores the fact that government technology is light years ahead of anything available to the average person. Thus, to believe that surveillance technology for VoIP software does not exist already is clearly naive.

Regardless, as is always the case when law enforcement and government claim they do not have enough sweeping power to ?keep us safe,? they are swiftly granted more.

In this case, however, it is the private sector (joined at the hip with the government, military, and intelligence agencies at the highest levels) that is rushing in to save the day. Specifically, Dennis Chang, President of Sun Valley-based company VOIP-PAL, has recently obtained patents to what has been termed a ?legal intercept technology? that would allow a host of government agencies to ?silently record? VoIP communications.

Predictably, Microsoft has also applied for a similar patent that would allow an agency to ?secretly intercept? communications via VoIP, amend the communications content, and store it. Although only recently announced to the public, the patent was filed as far back as 2009.

Chang?s VOIP-PAL patent was filed even earlier in 2007.

In the Microsoft patent, Patent Number 20110153809, it is stated that data that is linked with a request to establish a communication is ?modified to cause the communication to be established via a path that includes a recording agent.?

Among the possibilities of the types of modification that may occur during this process, ?adding, changing and/or deleting data within the data" are all potential methods of alteration.

After the data has been modified, it is then passed to a protocol entity which uses the data to establish a communications pathway than includes a recording agent which is then ?able to silently record the communication? according to the patent application.

Yet one should not be under the impression that this secret intercept surveillance technology is directed only at programs like Skype. As MassPrivateI writes,

The technology could allow the monitoring of conversations, voice messages and video conferences over a variety of devices, including smartphones, laptops and gaming devices.

. . . . . . .

Communications that can be intercepted may be conducted over computers, laptops, set-top boxes, programmable consumer electronics devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, gaming devices, printers, computing devices in automobiles and home media centers, the application states.

With this new technology, individuals can be identified by their usernames and subscriber data, as well as by billing records that can associate usernames with names and addresses. This would make not only calls available for easy interception, but also ?any other data streams such as pure data and/or video or multimedia data.?

Of course, it is now becoming well-known that governments and other militant privacy violators do not necessarily even need such technology. Nor do they even need the legal authority for access. This is because major companies like Skype have been notorious for easily surrendering users? personal data, even at times volunteering to submit the information to the requesting agencies. In a recent report by RT, it was described how Microsoft-owned Skype eagerly handed over the data of one of its users to a Texas-based intelligence firm.

Yet the legal authority to grind the boot of the state further into the face of American privacy is not being neglected either. Considering the recent announcement regarding the infamous Senator Patrick Leahy?s revision of a bill allegedly designed to protect American?s privacy into one that actually eviscerates privacy even more, there should be little doubt that the global surveillance control grid is moving ahead unabated.

In the end, the new VoIP surveillance software is yet one more block in the Berlin wall of surveillance and globalized control. As the Brookings Institution has already stated, the labor and cost needed to monitor, evaluate, and store every form of communication and data within the borders of the United States is minuscule when compared to other products.

With this in mind, anyone who believes those in control of these technologies are merely making wish lists for the future will find themselves both surprised and disappointed soon enough.

Read other articles by Brandon Turbeville here.

Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor's Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of three books, Codex Alimentarius -- The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, and Five Sense Solutions?and Dispatches From a Dissident.?Turbeville has published over 175 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville's podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV.? He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.?

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Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/11/surveillance-grid-moves-ahead-with-voip.html

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Complete Auto Loans Announces Huge Online Savings ... - Finance

by wolverine on November 25, 2012

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) November 24, 2012

Some consumers who are trying to get a car loan may find the process to be more hard then anticipated. Shopping for a car looks fun for rich people but most car shoppers don?t have a pile of money stashed away to blow on a dream car. For those car shopper who have struggled with finances applying for terrible credit auto loans is the best option. With a terrible credit auto loan a consumer is able to find a safe and reliable car, up to $ 40,000, that will last them for years to come.

Unfortunately most auto lenders charge terrible credit auto loan applicants a fee just to apply for a loan. Often these terrible credit auto loans will not even accept the car shopper for enough money to buy a decent car. Their goal is to simply draw desperate car buyers into a trap where they pay huge interest rates on a used vehicle which may accrue more future debt for the consumer. That?s why Complete Auto Loans is here for consumers. Their lending process is meant to help people who need a terrible credit auto loan to not only get approved quick but get approved with quality auto lenders at low rates. Their online car loans network has been developed with precision to give consumers the best rates on their next auto loan.

For a car shopper who is interested in understanding how well the system really works, it?s quite simple. The process of getting a terrible credit auto loan approved starts with Complete Auto Loans national network of auto lenders and automobile dealers. Their lenders and dealers specialize in helping people who struggle with a terrible credit history to get a zero or no money down auto loan. With such a fantastic and simple process college students are jumping on board to get student auto loans before heading to college. After the applicant has been approved they can generally get their money within 24 hours.

About Complete Auto Loans

The loan service provided by Complete Auto Loans boasts of speed and simplicity, claiming to qualify terrible credit auto loans within the time frame of one minute. With Complete Auto Loans, consumers are guaranteed a 100% acceptance rate and loan approval that is free of cost, quick, and that lays aside any type of credit history.

Keith Eneix

Complete Auto Loans

Tagged as: Announces, Auto, complete, credit, Huge, Loans, Online, Savings

Source: http://finance.only-the-news.com/complete-auto-loans-announces-huge-online-savings-for-bad-credit-auto-loans/

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Sunday, 25 November 2012

Boertala.com ? Online Build Own Business Network Your Online

Many online business owners and marketers use a variety of tools to make their business successful. Good strategies include maintaining a web site, publishing an ezine, joining affiliate programs, advertising on other people?s ezines, and much, much more. As any good Internet ?guru? will tell you, getting your name and product ?out there? is the most important part of your success. So, the general rule is: Use as many strategies as possible.

What I suggest is that you take this rule one step farther. What I think works best is combining as many of the strategies together, as possible. In other words, when you can, build your own network, using the tools you already have in place. And I?m using the word network, as it relates to networking your online systems ? not in the sense of a prospect or client network, though I have some tips on that, near the end of this article.

So, let?s break down this concept. Suppose you have a web site that promotes a product or service. You probably have a sales letter, some testimonials and a merchant account, so people can buy your product. Now, what I would suggest next, if you don?t already have it, is your own ezine (online magazine, operated by an e-mail autoresponder). You get visitors to subscribe to your ezine, using a pop-up or another type of FREE subscription form on your web site. Again, this may not be new to most people, but here?s another spin on it. In addition to your pop-up or basic sign-up form on your site, why not add a page to your site, with a link on your home page, that does nothing but promote your ezine.

You see, many people pass up your subscription form, because they are afraid of SPAM, or they don?t know enough about your ezine. Will it interest them? Or, will it just bombard them with more advertising?

A separate page can explain exactly what the ezine does, promote articles that you have in it, even give a sample issue, so prospects can see what they are getting. Be sure to have several subscription forms on this page between sections of your text, so people have plenty of opportunity to subscribe. Also, be sure that visitors are linked back to your home page, once they?ve subscribed, so they get back to looking at your product. Any good autoresponder will have this feature, which is crucial, because although you desperately want people signing up for your ezine, you also want them to read your sales letter and, hopefully, buy your product.

Make sure your ezine articles always link back to your web site, so you are constantly promoting yourself. After all, this is really what ezines are for.

Another part of good online networking is to set up affiliate programming, in a similar fashion to the aforementioned ezine promotion. That is, instead of just offering your own product as an affiliate program, set up a separate page on your web site for affiliate programs you use. So, you might have a link on your home/sales page called ?Other Great Products.? Obviously, you can use your own creativity for this title.

This link will take visitors to a site that promotes other products, for which you gain a commission as an affiliate. If you are unfamiliar with affiliate programs, visit ClickBank, the largest free affiliate program on the Internet. Most Internet marketers only offer their own product to people, who want to join affiliate programs, or they may offer just one other related product, with a link on their home page.

Plus, don?t forget any other web sites of your own. Always be sure to link to them on all of your URLs and in your ezine articles. The key to building your own online network is to be sure you have promotional pages for all of your products and affiliates on your web sites and to link everything together. Remember, you want every visitor on your e-mail list, and you always want them landing back on your promotional pages.

One final thought. Promoting your business network offline is also critical to your success. Some basic techniques I use are:

? URL on return address stickers

? Business cards with ezine address and web site

? Fliers at community businesses and public places (be sure your community knows you above all others)

? Free seminars in regional communities, discussing my topic (remember, you don?t need to make money here ? all you want is to get your name out there and to get e-mail addresses, so you can add them to your ezine list)

? Teach a class at a community college (get more e-mail addresses)

? Give free information away at community festivals, like Home Days

? Advertise in your local Money Saver magazines. It?s cheap, and it reaches tens of thousands of people, who love cheap or free stuff.

? Anything else you can think of that get people to your site and to your ezine

Stay positive. Building a network takes time and hard work, but it?s well worth it in the end.

To get Let?s Talk Sports, send a blank e-mail to letstalksports@getresponse.com

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