You’ve probably seen eBay‘s context-sensitive advertising on Google: you search for, say, “children’s toys”, and one of the Google ads on the right-hand side of the page tells you how you can buy and sell children’s toys on eBay. I’ve always thought that this system was probably just waiting to be abused, so I had a go at Googling for some animals (real and fictional), and picking up the eBay ads:
Yes, this is a collage of genuine advertisements. Didn’t know you could buy kittens on eBay, or “bargain monkeys”, let alone Griffons, which are mythological.
Let’s see what else I can get. What happens if you search for “eBay”:
Interesting that one of the ads that comes up if you search for ‘eBay’ is one for Lycos… what?
I wonder what I can get hold of from eBay in order to commit fraud and cause destruction, in order to further my plans for world domination…
Wow! eBay’s a proper little terrorist toolkit, and I never knew it. I know where I’ll be getting my “new & used ID cards” from, not to mention taking advantage of “great deals on armaments!”
Perhaps eBay needs to make these ads a little smarter.