I just remembered you…

Since last week, I have been receiving requests  about the new search engine Scour. Some of these requests came from people I know but MOST of them came from long lost acquaintances.

The invitations are something like this

Did you hear about Scour? It is the next gen search engine with Google/Yahoo/MSN results and user comments all on one page. Best of all we get rewarded for using it by collecting points with every search, comment and vote. The points are redeemable for Visa gift cards It’s like earning credit card or airline points just for searching. Hit the link below to join and we will both get points!

http://scour.com/invite/<<affiliate_id>>/

I know you’ll like it!

– <<name of the sender>>

Out of curiosity, I wanted to find out what is behind this. It was not difficult to find that out. I found this in the rewards section for the site.

The top search engines make billions of dollars a year in advertising revenue, wouldn’t it be cool if the users got a piece of that too? Enter Scour Points! Every member is awarded one point for every search, two for a vote and three for a comment with a maximum of 4 points a search. Once you aggregate at least 6,500 points you can cash them out for a $25 Visa gift card… it’s more than you currently make from searching, right? On top of that, we offer referral points for the friends you introduce to Scour where you can earn 25% of the points they make. So if you invited 25 friends that used scour regularly in addition to yourself, that’s an easy $125 in your pocket for a year of what you already do! Check out how much you could earn with the Scour Points Calculator. This isn’t a pyramid scheme and we’re not trying to get you rich quick, we just think it’s a good idea to share our success with those who help make it possible.

Play a part in the Scour community and get rewarded for what you already do!

My thoughts:

1. This is a simple case of “selective withholding” of information. The invitation says “we both will get points” but does not say “the sender gets additional points (a fraction of the points earned by the receiver)”.

2. Please notice the emphasis in the rewards section – “This isn’t a pyramid scheme and we’re not trying to get you rich quick…” Just in case you thought it was one 🙂

3. I wonder how they expect to increase the quality of search results if most of the people who are participating (votes, comments, recruitments etc.) are doing this to earn points.

All the best to everyone involved.