1000s Of Bloggers Fooled: The “Brutally Murdered Russian Spammer” Never Existed

I read about this in the printed edition of the UK Times this morning and I judge it as the most successful linkbait in the history of the Internet.

On Oct 11th Alex Loonov reported that a infamous Russian Viagra and penis enlargement spammer called Alexey Tolstokozhev had been murdered by Russian hit men.

“Tolstokozhev was a famous spammer who sent millions of e-mail promoting viagra, cialis, penis enlargement pills and other medications. He was found murdered in his luxury house near Moscow and had been shot several times with one bullet stuck in his head. According to authorities, this last head shot is a clear mark of russian hit men”

This story spread like wild fire across the Internet after being picked up by bloggers and social voting sites such as SlashDot.

Some research into the story revealed that something fishy has been going on. On his company’s blog , Alex Eckelberry, president and CEO of Sunbelt Software first showed that a Google search for the supposedly famous spammer comes up with nothing (apart from posts about this story) and he doesn’t appear on ROSKO. Loonov’s domain was also only registered on the day the hoax was published despite the fake archives.

Spammers can sleep easy for now.

Technorati Tags: UK Times, successful, linkbait, Internet, spammer