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At first glance, they look like city, media and medical portals or disguise themselves as websites of official institutions. They all sell questionable products and services – with a perfidious strategy.
Sometimes a small typo or the selection of a wrong search result is enough: If you ndr-Broadcast Hamburg-Journal It can happen to people who are looking for a job but enter “Hamburger Journal” in the address, as can people who want to visit the State Examination Office for Medicine, Psychotherapy and Pharmacy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia online and try using the abbreviation LPFA-NRW.
They land on sites that at first glance make a serious impression, but this is deceptive. The site that can be found under LPFA-NRW has no connection with the authority that is supposed to be behind it, as the responsible district government of Düsseldorf has told the ARD fact finder confirmed.
Potemkin villages on the internet
If you take a closer look at the websites, you will notice that they mostly consist of freely accessible press releases and PR texts that appear to have been randomly selected and some of which are several years old. Others read as if they were created by artificial intelligence.
References to official institutions are intended to suggest credibility.
Similar sites masquerade as city portals, for example for Stuttgart, Münster, Frankfurt and Berlin, or claim to be reputable medical advice services, for example as the “National Communications Office for Barrier-Free Everyday Life” or the “Professional Association for Health Consumer Protection and Prevention”. This cites the “Stern”, the Free University of Berlin and “Zeit Online” as references, among others.
Some of the sites suggest that they are run by reputable institutions, but these do not actually exist.
Some of these offers claim that they sell their own magazines through retailers. Others advertise “exclusive content”, which, however, again consists largely of copied press releases.
Serious facades for questionable and dangerous offers
These sites have two things in common: They all advertise questionable or even harmful health products – and they are run by a single company: Young and Moore Publishing. ARD fact finder was able to track down around 40 websites and four alleged print products that belong to the network.
They follow a perfidious strategy: city and media portals report on the alleged breakthrough that has been achieved with this product. On the advice pages you can find recommendations, on the medical portals “independent tests” – and of course direct links everywhere to suppliers from whom you can supposedly buy these products at particularly low prices.
Most of the content is copied from other sites. The print magazines that are supposedly offered do not exist.
The trail leads to Dubai
Young and Moore Publishing has the pages marketed by the agency Reachstar “powered by AdRock” in Dubai – and makes it clear what it is all about:
Are you looking for an effective marketing solution that reaches your target group and is well positioned in the search engines? Then use our website to highlight your products and services. Without visibility in the search engines, you potentially lose many customers. In cooperation with Reachstar, we increase the credibility and authenticity of your brand and win these customers for you!
Almost anything is possible for money
In an advertising video, ReachStar shows how it works: Simply log in to the portal, select the websites you want, upload your own text and pay online. ReachStar ensures that the posts are expressly not marked as advertisements or sponsored content and are published within five minutes. The costs: from 100 euros per article placed, payable by credit card, PayPal or Bitcoin. If desired, the texts can be created at the same time for a fee of 50 euros.
For an additional charge, problematic content such as advertising for cryptocurrencies, gambling, pyramid schemes and health products can also be placed. Accordingly, the pages contain articles about potency enhancers as well as products for weight loss and pain relief.
A promotional article for “Glukobest” disguised as a test appeared on “kaisers.de” among other places. The word mark “KAISERS” belongs to Adrock Media in Dubai.
advertisement for obvious Fraud product
The website advertised, among other things, the drug “GlukoBest,” which supposedly “can cure diabetes 100 percent.” The NRW consumer advice center expressly warns against trusting the provider’s promise: “As part of consumer complaints, the product was reported to us as advertising related to illness,” says Stefan Stehl, speaker in the Fact Check Health Advertising project, the ARD fact finder.
For example, the “GlukoBest” website suggests a connection between the product and the cure for diabetes and cancer by depicting alleged user opinions. The provider also provokes people with statements such as harmful actions by the pharmaceutical industry and other health promises. The NRW consumer advice center is therefore considering legal action against the offer.
The owner of the “GlukoBest” brand is Visionarix Marketing Services, which, like AdRock and ReachStar, is located in the same building complex in the Dubai Free Trade Zone – and, like them, is represented by the same Hamburg law firm.
No response to inquiries
The ARD fact finder has repeatedly asked both AdRock and Young and Moore Publishing for statements, in particular regarding the editorial review of the articles, the institutions stated as alleged references, and the experts and journals stated to be associated with the offers. The requests were not answered.
The sites will probably continue to exist for quite some time: pursuing copyright and trademark infringements or enforcing other legal claims is hardly possible because Young and Moore Publishing is allegedly based in the Marshall Islands. The majority of the websites are also protected by the obfuscation service Cloudflare.