I Buy Strays? - Stay Away!

The I Buy Strays (sometimes written as IBuyStrays) Web site is a HOAX. It claims to pay money and encourage people to sell them stray and unwanted cats and dogs for research. In fact, according to reports, they don't actually do this.

It is a bad web site, written in inflammatory language designed to incense dog, cat, and animal lovers into furious emotional turmoil.

Aside from the offensive content, the I Buy Strays Web site may have a hidden agenda that is more insideous -- one of greed and ill gotten gains from traffic and publicity through ads they carry on the site and their open e-mail contact system.

The Web site is getting a lot of publicity and unfortunately, much of that contains a direct link to the site, which drives traffic into the site.

We believe this is their hidden agenda. They carry advertisements, and this is possibly what the site owners are hoping will give them lots of quick easy money.

Because of this, we do not provide a link to their site on this article. Please read on to understand why we recommend that you stay away and do not visit the IBuyStrays web site.

The site has been discovered to be a hoax. They claim that they don't actually buy animals and have no means to do so.

According to a report posted on the About.com Web site by the Guide to Urban Legends, the owners of IBuyStrays are claiming it is "militant satire", and they have no intention of buying and selling stray cats and dogs. You can read the About.com report by following the link to About.com Urban Legends is at the bottom of this article.

The cats guide to About.com also has an excellent article about the I Buy Strays Web site. A link to the About.com Cats is provided at the bottom of this article.

Aside from the fact that I Buy Strays is simply a really bad Web site, offering a completely offensive make money scheme, it appears the site has a hidden agenda, - that of gathering traffic and publicity from the sensational nature of its topic.

We can't do much about the publicity, but every reader on the Internet can control the traffic by staying away from the sensational and hoax site. The issue is traffic and what it does to unsuspecting advertisers whose ads are on the IBuyStrays Web site.

Google adwords advertisers and others whose ads are being carried on the site (these advertisers may not even know their ads are there!) are being bilked of money in the form of irrelevant advertising costs (possibly this constitutes Pay Per Click fraud on the part of IBuyStrays) when irate visitors click on their ads. It also gives the advertisers a bad name being associated with the I Buy Strays site.

It isn't the advertisers' fault, it comes from the way Internet advertising works.

PPC (Pay Per Click) and PPI (Pay Per Impression) advertising is usually keyword based and out of control of the advertisers themselves. They bid for the keywords, and computers - using complex algorithms - place their ads on sites that among other things, also have these keywords.

Advertisers are not told where their ads appear, they trust that the ad system (such as Google adwords) have placed them in appropriate sites. Computers cannot check for content, and this is how I Buy Strays gets the ads while having sensational content and outraging visitors to the site.

This harms the advertisers who would never place an ad on such a site.

The concept is called "viral marketing". The idea behind it is to create something of great interest to many people and have them spread the word. It's the usual, "I told two friends and they told two friends..." approach.

In principle, viral marketing is based on useful information that helps people or entertains them and so on. A good movie can experience viral marketing by "word of mouth" advertising like this, and it is a perfectly sound and beneficial idea. When properly used, "viral" marketing can effectively get the word out to people about something that will help improve the quality of their lives.

It appears that I Buy Strays has taken this concept to the dark side.

The site is infuriating to animal lovers and pushes their emotional buttons. Driven by their emotional response to the content of the site, site visitors tell others about it to express their outrage, and the growth spiral gets started.

It appears to us that this is exactly what I Buy Strays wants to happen. It appears that they don't care what people think of them, they want the traffic on their site.

The lack of ethics here is not new to I Buy Strays.

Unscrupulous marketing firms have approached ClydeSight Productions and made the suggestion for a similar approach. The marketing "experts" claim is that any publicity is "good" as long as it gets traffic to a Web site. Some go even further to suggest that sensational and negative content is emotionally stirring and therefore a valid subject to start people talking and launch a "viral" marketing campaign.

ClydeSight Productions completely disagrees with this unethical concept.

We are all about helping and entertaining people. We reject the negative and sensational marketing concept because we believe that Web site content should help people, educate them, entertain them and offer something of positive value.

We simply say goodbye to these questionable marketing firms and go about our business of helping, educating and entertaining people the way we have for over 10 years.

Apparently, the IBuyStrays Web site owners don't think the same way. And it gets worse...

I Buy Strays has no printed privacy policy, no phone number or postal mail address, yet they have a plain e-mail contact link. This one is potentially very dangerous.

Because they use a simple e-mail link, anyone writing to them - regardless of what they have to say - is at risk of having their e-mail address easily collected by the I Buy Strays Web site owners. This is one way to build e-mail lists and sell them. Spybots and other malware programs might also grab the e-mail address from the unprotected correspondent.

The solution to the I Buy Strays Web site hoax is to ignore them or report them to the proper authorities as an offensive Web site with inflammatory content. If you see an ad on Craigslist or some other classifieds ad sites, you can report them as offensive content.

Many people have already done this. According to some pet forum posts, people have reported the I Buy Strays Web site to Google, and different humane societies that have law enforcement divisions.

If you are an advertiser and your ads are appearing on the I Buy Strays Web site against your wishes, you too can report the issue to the advertising system (i.e. Google adwords) that you use and demand the ad be pulled from the IBuyStrays Web site.

If you must visit the site, please don't click on any ads and potentially hurt innocent advertisers and don't e-mail the owners of the IBuyStrays Web site.

The best solution is simply not to go there.

Cooperate with authorities and help them apply the rule of law to dealing with this issue.

Don't encourage or participate in massive e-mail campaigns to "get the word out" about this offensive site. This just clogs up e-mail systems and spreads the discomfort that the IBuyStrays Web site has started.

Support animal shelters and other authorities who have initiatives for creating laws to protect animals, such as the Pet Safety and Protection Act in the United States.

The I Buy Strays Web site is a bad Web site for many reasons. It is a hoax, negative, sensational, suggests a horrendous business practice, is written in inflammatory language, has a risky e-mail contact system and is upsetting a great many people.

There is nothing to recommend visiting or contacting this site, and we recommend that people stay away from them entirely. This is the fastest way to manage the problem they present.

Don't give them anything, and that includes your time.