A response from maymay

Maymay was asked for his opinion on Fred Petrenko’s defense of his company’s unethical linking scheme. Here’s what he had to say:

I read their response, and investigated (briefly) some of the other sites they claim are using “encapsulation,” a term I’ve never heard of in this context before. I believe they are using a classic smoke-and-mirrors tactic, a classic “we’re doing it for your your own good, your safety, your security” misdirection, which is disingenuous. I call bullshit on EdenFantasys’s response, because the proof of the other websites’ innocence is underneath the “View source” button, just like the proof of their guilt is.

Here is a snippet of code of a link from one of the sites Fred mentioned, Lifehacker:

<a href="http://www.proteron.com/">LiteSwitch X</a> [Site via <a href="http://onethingwell.org/post/610183401/liteswitch-x">One Thing Well</a>

The above snippet was taken from the page at http://lifehacker.com/5541901/liteswitch-x-makes-macs-application-switcher-far-more-useful.

That snippet of code from Lifehacker, as you have already no doubt guessed, is exactly the same with and without JavaScript. It’s exactly the same in Safari and Firefox. It’s exactly the same on a Mac and a PC. It’s exactly the same for humans and for Googlebot. It’s exactly the same as other links on Lifehacker.com, even though it’s a link that points off-site.

So where is the “encapsulation” Fred is talking about? Maybe in his head. Or maybe he only wants his disingenuous story to be in the heads of non-technical users.

All of you can do exactly what I’ve done to test his claims. Disable JavaScript and view source. If you don’t already know the reality, then look into it for yourself, and then try to reconcile what you see with EdenFantasys’s story.

Let’s look again at EdenFantasys’s code for “links,” again with JavaScript disabled:

<span ID="EFLink_68034_fe64d2">female consumers make up 56% of video sales.</span>

In no way do the two snippets bear any significant resemblance. Fred’s claim that other sites like Lifehacker are doing the same kind of sneaky JavaScript redirects is a flat-out lie. The audacity of his statement (he must have known someone would challenge the claim), is stunning.

The more EdenFantasys tries to throw smoke in the face of their unethical behavior, the more obvious their deception becomes, and you don’t need to be a professional web developer to tell the difference.

When it comes to technology, I don’t believe openness and honesty based on promises should be sufficient. When it comes to technology, demand actually honest and open code. Demand transparency, otherwise you get people like Fred making promises and crying “safety!” while doing exactly the kind of unethical SEO as they’re doing.

So no, I totally don’t buy their response. Not even a little. Not even close.

Moreover, the kind of link-filtering EdenFantasys describe doing for “safety” is a technique already implemented by sites like Twitter and Facebook, which both function very differently from the way EdenFantasys does. Arguing that removing offsite links and programmatically altering links in syndicated content to point back to themselves for “security” reasons is a weak straw-man argument. There are more effective ways to offer security, and I think any technical professional worth their salt can understand that.

That post he made is not intended to clear his company’s name, it’s intended to placate the already loyal and to confuse the as-yet undecided.

–please read the rest of the comments here.