Its a google ad box unfortunately - and while we can theoretically ban certain adds only daniel has any control over it... we haven't seen Daniel for at least two months... i'll flag it to him next time we see him but don't expect quick action.
I'm seeing it now, too. Unfortunately, IIRC, you can only opt out of categories of ads, not specific advertisers, and we probably want some publishers (the honest ones) hawking their wares.
And your friendly mod team has no control over any of that. Burning spammers and pillorying the unrighteous is about all we can do. The rest is in the hands of the Gods.
all we can do is keep telling people to beware of vanities in the publishing section... we also have to be careful about that because some of the more notorious vanities are known for suing sites/people who talk smack about them... and while the truth is a defense to an allegation of defamation going to court is a costly business that the site can't afford the other thing about google ads is that they tailor themselves to the viewer based on cookies and google search history... currently i'm getting private jets, fast cars, and firearms accessories... so if you are getting lots of vanities it means that google think you are interested in viewing them... i'm fairly sure theres a mechanism for telling google that you're not like there is on facebook
And as with everything on the internet, users need to use their noodles and be judicious about what they click on. Unfortunately, the design of the ad box on this particular site does appear to be more official than your typical click-baity facebooky obvious garbage link, but like Moose said, we can't directly post "do not click" warnings. All we can do is hope members use their noodles before their thumbs.
