Digg.com

Digg.com announced that users of their site have been using the comment boards as tools to distribute VideoPlay adware. The process is brief, users leave links in comments they've made that invite others to view videos, and when those links are clicked on by others they are redirected to a site and asked to download a codec to see the video. The codec then runs the VideoPlay adware which is a fake virus scan. On top of that the codec corrupts operations of the computer to convince people that their computers do, in fact, have viruses which will be removed once they pay for the adware. Crazy, I know. The real purpose of this post is not just to let people know that smart people on the internet are tricking us out of our money, but also to point out that Digg.com is in a tight spot by no fault of their own. Regardless of where the problem came from they took responsibility for it and are trying to stop others from being scammed. That is good business, and it earned them a plug on my blog, I bet they are excited. If more businesses took responsibility when things go wrong instead of hide it or blame others (Enron, Exxon, etc.) then people might not look at big corporations with such disgust. But big corporations attract big attention and most of the time it ends up leaving a bad taste in our mouths.