The Internet is a wonderful thing. Its main benefits seem to be three-fold:

1) The web allows you to access an infinite amount of information

2) The web allows you to contribute to a wonderful and diverse community such as E2

3) The web allows you to be targeted in a plethora of increasingly intrusive ways by advertising and marketing bods*.

Websites such as Banana Lotto operate in very fiendish way indeed. The fruity lottery people allow you to participate in a free draw up - giving you, the consumer, the opportunity to win up to £1million, 3 times a day.
How can they possibly fund this magnanimous operation, you ask yourself? Anyone versed in the ways of marketroids will by now have guessed.

They have created something of perceived value - a free lottery, which is really only window-dressing for the real agenda behind the exercise:

TO MAKE YOU LOOK AT ADVERTS

We are used to seeing banner ads on websites, and perceive them as a nuisance - they very occasionally have some benefit but for the most part they inconvenience us and fund the site concerned. Fair enough. Maybe.

With sites like Banana Lotto the apparent bi-product is in fact the raison d'être -

THE ADS ARE THE MAIN CONTENT OF THE SITE

and once you've submitted your numbers by clicking on an advert, you can't even get back to the original site.

Isn't it amazing that we are so unwilling to pay attention to advertising in this cynical day and age that we have to be offered the chance to win £1million to look at the damn things?

*Ooh, sorry, this IS NOT a benefit after all.

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