This is curious or at least amusing. I have an add-on to my Firefox browser called WOT (web of trust) – it is supposed to use community recommendations to identify questionable sites.
Today, I learned that the Wall Street Journal Online was not to be trusted. 😉
Look a little closer – the link that is rated is not Wall Street Journal Online, which is highly trusted. See their scorecard here, http://www.mywot.com/scorecard/online.wsj.com. It is actually http://www.mywot.com/scorecard/roia.biz, a third-party tracking service.
Sponsored links and links on email newsletters often go through third-party tracking services, which record your click and then redirect you to the advertised website. The WOT add-on shows you the reputation for the website that your browser starts loading when you click the link and not the reputation of the site you are redirected to. Often these third-party tracking services have an unsatisfactory (yellow) or poor WOT reputation rating (red).