Update -2- (Jan 20th 2005, 13:45):
I still recieve lot's of comments on this issue, which all have basically the same content, affirming my opinion. The most common sense is, that abusing the content created by somebody else to put ads into it (in the way it is done, by modifying the content) is a real shame and has to be considered equal with spam. Today an anonymouse reader pointed out, that they actually violate the OPL, under which the PHP manual is provided. The OPL says "The modified version must be labeled as such." and "The person making the modifications must be identified and the modifications dated.". Both points seem not being fulfilled on that site.
Other commentors pointed out to me, that the freaks also link the word "Perl" to their hosting service. Maybe this is interessting to peoplei of the Perl community?
Anyway, thanks for everyone who added an affirmation and showed to this strange freaks, that their ad practices are despicable. If you want to raise your opinion, please don't hesitate to add a comment here!
Update (Jan 17th 2005, 13:45):
Many people replied to my article, so I feel I should post an update. Thanks for everyone who stated his opinion so far.
Today I saw that phpfreaks.com actually changed the links on the word PHP to point to their start page and now link the word hosting to their webspace provider. At least, this does not harm my PHP evangelism feelings that much anymore. Anyway, the difference between ad and content is still not clear at all. Pretty many people (compared to the usual comment traffic on my blog) already claimed their support against this kind of ads here.
Most funnily phpfreaks.com even aggregated this article through an indirection of phpdeveloper.org. While I like getting aggregated on sites like phpdeveloper.org, planet-php.net and so on quite much, I strongly discourage that my content is reused by this phpfreaks page. Sorry guys, I do not permit you any longer to use my words for your advertisements.
Do you have an opinion on this? Please leave a comment here!
Original (Jan 12th 2005, 19:06):
As Vidyut pointed out, phpfreaks.com seems to automatically create a link everywhere on their website, where the word "PHP" appears. They do this even in user comments. Apparently this seems to be a nice service, if the link would direct you to php.net (or maybe some explaination page or something). But instead they link to some hosting provider which supports PHP (what also well known as a "sponsored link").
I have to admit that this is one of the largest brazennesses I every saw. Beside that, it's absolutely frowned upon in journalism circles (even the famous German "Bild-Zeitung" does not do advertisment in such a abject way, also they are wellknown for borderlining adverts) and in many states even completly illegal.
You should really feel ashame, you strange PHPFreaks!
