Order of the Bath

If you are not aware of it, Farmville is one of the many addictive games that are available in Facebook. It is not the only culprit in these deceptive marketing techniques but among the best known. What you also need to know is that the lure is the internal currency used in the game. There is a thriving market in this to rival some minor real world currencies. For those that refuse to part with actual cash to buy the stuff then they try these sub-games.

At the end it says “Farm Cash awarded after the submission of a valid mobile number and PIN confirmation.” What they don’t say anywhere obvious is that sending this PIN number back to them as “confirmation” subscribes you to a mobile service which will cost you $9.99 US per month (there may be different versions in the UK). This is only one variation that makes Farmville and its associates part of a multi-million dollar business and as a side effect, the advertising boots the profits of Facebook. They don’t have the muscle to stop it but, when there is this benefit, why should they bother.

Thanks to SunBelt for the lead and TechCrunch for the detail.

This entry was posted on 12 Nov 2009 at 12:14 by Rick and is filed under Miscellaneous, Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.