http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/mlm.htm

Pay-To-whatever - There are some pay-to-do-something companies that are legitimate. My experience is that vast majority of these have minimal financing, an exceptionally poor business model and little, if any, likelihood of actually paying anything to anyone. Usually there is not fraudulent intent - just a lot of silliness and idiocy.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/paidchat.htm http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/paidclick.htm http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/paidemail.htm http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/paidradio.htm http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/paidshop.htm http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/paidsurf.htm http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/paidsurveys.htm

Cons - There are some unbelievable cons out there on internet and in real world. The Nigerian scam is a particularly nasty example. In this scam, you receive a letter or email which tries to get you involved in "helping" some ex-Nigerian official by giving him your bank account number. Get involved and you will lose money and perhaps more than that.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/809areacode.htm http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/donlapre.htm http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/nigerian.htm

Identify Theft - Perhaps most significant threat on internet is identify theft. This is simply stealing of your social security number (and other identifying information) with intention of using it to obtain credit. Give out your information to wrong person and you could find your credit rating is destroyed.

Sweepstakes - There is no doubt that there are a tremendous number of contests and sweepstakes which are perfectly valid. I even personally know of some people who have won. However, many sweepstakes are thinly veiled attempts to invade your privacy while making lots of money at expense of your time. For most of these, I would not bother. Not exactly fraud, but skating on thin ice.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/sweepstakes.htm

For more information, check out Scams And Frauds http://www.internet-tips.net/Moneymaking/scams.htm

Regardless of product, you now have power to remove those annoying ads from your surfing experience.

As an added benefit, this has tremendous effects on safeguarding your privacy. These products both remove web bugs, which are nasty little things created to track your movements across internet. Now you can stop telling companies like DoubleClick from following your surfing habits. By blocking ad, you are also blocking report back to them of what you are viewing.

How do these programs work? It's very simple really. These intercept web pages before they get to your browser and examine HTML code. If they find something that matches one of their patterns for an advertisement, they simply remove code.

This means you pay a small price in CPU performance (I personally didn't notice any delay), but gain it back in bandwidth performance as you do not have to load banners.

Additional Resources:

You can find Adsubtract at: http://www.internet-tips.net/cgi-bin/lnkinlte.cgi?l=.adsubtract

Learn more about firewalls: http://www.internet-tips.net/Security/Firewalls.htm

Learn about web bugs: http://www.internet-tips.net/Security/webbugs.htm