How come Facebook doesn’t give a damn how dodgy its ads are?

Because it’s too busy making money to care, that’s why.

Take a look at these ads.  Yes, you guessed it.  They’re for ‘get-rich-without-doing-much’ Google schemes.

Now before Dustin or Andrew get mad with me, look closer.  They seem to have, ah, accidentally borrowed each other’s testimonials.  Doh.

Dustin’s:

“Jordan S says:

I want to add my testimonial on this blog. Here you go Dustin. I was wary about working from home, because I’d heard horror stories about the Internet. But I’d heard that there were rounds of layoffs coming at my company, so I figured I should do something to try and have a backup should the worst happen. I was amazed when I got your kit. It started working right away. By the time the layoffs happened, I was already making more money from Google than I was in my job. Now I use Google full time and have a great income.”

Andrew’s:

Comment by Danny J

January 25, 2009 @ 9:36 am I want to add my testimonial on this blog. Here you go Andrew. “I was wary about working at home, because I’d heard horror stories about the Internet. But I’ heard that there were rounds of layoffs coming at my company, so I figured I should do something to try and have a backup should the worst happen. I was amazed when I got your kit. It started working right away. By the time the layoffs happened, I was already making more money from Google than I was in my job. Now I use Google full time and have a great income.”

Etc, etc, etc.  Links to ‘Dustin’s’ site here and ‘Andrew’s’ site here.  And guys, don’t get p*ssed off with me – I am promoting you for free after all

Since I’m such an eagle-eyed old skeptic, I regularly click through to see just what kind of junky ads Facebook is happily targetting susceptible members with.

My unscientific research shows me that so far, a majority of those I’ve clicked are for what I’d consider pretty dodgy schemes.  Yeah, yeah, they’re probably legal – but ask yourself who is hiding behind ‘Dustin’ and ‘Andrew’?  And why does he have to make up testimonials?

I’d like to think that the fact that it doesn’t occur to him that someone like me would compare his testimonials means he’s stupid.  Unfortunately, all it really means is that he knows how desperate – and uncritical – his intended recruits are.

All this on the day that I read the Government’s report on Digital Britain – a document that insists that ‘being digital must be within everyone’s grasp’ without any mention of what’s going on beneath the happy family broadband facade.

What’s infuriating is that Facebook knows damn well what it’s doing as this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald shows.