Linkbait, stolen images, false claims

This is a good one I found while reading a story on CNN.

The link...and the stolen photo from a Fenix TK75 ad



TK75 ad photo (I believe it was originally provided by a CPF member)




And the page you're taken to. I immediately recognize the beamshot photo from the German forum


Come on! The Internet sure is becoming more and more of a cesspool.

The saddest part is that a lot of people believe these things. My boss, who already has a bunch of Fenix and other high-quality lights, saw this ad and asked if it was worth looking into. Even as the owner of good lights, he doesn't have any context to judge "brightest ever" or any of the other fantastic claims.

Some claim 700, some 1200, sometimes it is 1600, it will likley be 3000 lumens claimed.
One would have to be a serious flashaholic to see the discrepancy in the images, let alone recognize the photos.
last time I had seen those pictures it was from this thread:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...New-light-nicknamed-quot-Superman-Vision-quot
I was witness to the short life and death of one of these lights.
Pretty cheap stuff, for the money there are better options.
but then again we might see these for sale at $3 a peice someday as it goes the way of the sipik.

I see those on my MSN feed all the time. Sad...

1DaveN said:

The saddest part is that a lot of people believe these things. My boss, who already has a bunch of Fenix and other high-quality lights, saw this ad and asked if it was worth looking into. Even as the owner of good lights, he doesn't have any context to judge "brightest ever" or any of the other fantastic claims.

Click to expand...

Yup, a coworker, who owns 1 light I gave him, saw a ad like this too. He asked me if it was better than what I gave him & if he should buy it! Gesh. :tinfoil:

I think I had looked at flashlights on his computer one day. So it popped up on his ads?

I always twitch when I see something along the lines of "military grade lights now available to the public."

Dude, the 6P has been around for years...

The Fulton anglehead longer than that.

It happens all the time.If a pic is loaded then it is fair game to companies or individuals to use.Have a friend that did a bodybuilding transformation and posted the results on a well known forum.Now his pic is being used as an ad for a supplement that he has never used,and he never gave permission for.I guarantee you have seen my bearded friend that is over 50,on many a site.

The light pics shown above illustrate that there are unscrupulous companies that will cheat to sell a product. Also,loved that German beamshot thread.

Pictures with logos are scooped up by bots and crawlers.
Some say fair game. Others say privacy invasion.

I went searching for a particular jacket, that had a particular logo. I had one already but was searching for a larger size.
Well low and behold on the web was my jacket. I had sewn a patch on the opposite side on the chest...the photo was snatched from a forum. So I reversed the photo in my phone to make logos backwards..un recognizable to bots and crawlers, edited my post on the forum with said reversed photo replacing the previous, and suddenly when google searching that jacket the image was gone.

What I'm saying is you post a light next to say...a gatorade bottle with logo showing..or the logo on the light for that matter... you post it on a forum with outside ads...you know, the kind mentioned above...someday search google for say...gatorade and if you scroll through the images they give you to pick from...at some point you'll see your photo.

CPF seems closed to that sort of thing as the ads here are 'in house'...and member supported...

I'm sure admins can elaborate on that...if I'm wrong I appologize...but this place it seems to me is more private than your average ad based forums run for profit.

The ads are taking over!

The ads or Skynet?

The flashlight examples posted above, while egregious, are small potatoes - check the Spotlights subforum for the recent thread on the $1.75 eBay flashlight with one of the beamshot pics lifted from one of our 1KW short-arc Tank Light threads.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...-sale-with-insane-hilarious-false-advertising

I sent an email to a friend in regards to a compact Nitecore flashlight that I thought he might like. All of a sudden, all of the girly ads that he has been getting for years in his Yahoo Finance page on his iPhone were replaced by ads for this G700 flashlight.

Advertising is the fuel that makes the webosphere go round.

I've seen an ad similar to the one in OP while browsing CPF through Tapatalk. Something about a recently revealed light used by Navy SEALS. Haha.

Tre_Asay said:

Some claim 700, some 1200, sometimes it is 1600, it will likley be 3000 lumens claimed.
One would have to be a serious flashaholic to see the discrepancy in the images, let alone recognize the photos.
last time I had seen those pictures it was from this thread:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...New-light-nicknamed-quot-Superman-Vision-quot
I was witness to the short life and death of one of these lights.
Pretty cheap stuff, for the money there are better options.
but then again we might see these for sale at $3 a peice someday as it goes the way of the sipik.

Click to expand...

There is a thread over on BLF where people have already found this G700 "military grade" flashlight available on Chinese sites for 3 bucks lol

I'm excited for what this will mean for tax season. I'm sure we'll all be seeing some nice tax breaks what with the armed forces getting their mil-spec lights for $3 a piece now. Whoooo!!

richbuff said:

I sent an email to a friend in regards to a compact Nitecore flashlight that I thought he might like. All of a sudden, all of the girly ads that he has been getting for years in his Yahoo Finance page on his iPhone were replaced by ads for this G700 flashlight.

Advertising is the fuel that makes the webosphere go round.

Click to expand...

Oh man 3 friends asked me about the G700 recently. I believe the tag line was "The flashlight every American should own" or something like that. I guess the Ads work otherwise they wouldn't do them.

I had to share this one - saw the ad just now:

TMedina said:

I had to share this one - saw the ad just now:

Click to expand...

Well as far as Elzetta goes they aren't wrong, it's just the fact they use an Elzetta to represent an ultrafire

Right? I realize the average consumer won't spot it, but to the rest of us...whoa.

I I have been seeing clickbait images that were images of the Lumaray flashlight probably the first version and then when you click through to it it just takes you to the NECO $5 flashlights which you can buy for a $50 or whatever it's a bunch of junk.