YNOT – An unidentified ring of cyber-scammers is using bogus adult websites to con big-name mainstream advertisers out of big bucks in affiliate commissions.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the as-yet-unidentified perpetrators steer users to sites promising free porn, only to launch automated scripts that “trick” affiliate programs into paying commissions for fraudulent advertising views and clicks.

“When a user visits one of these porn sites, the webpage launches dozens of pages that are hidden from the computer user,” Emily Steel wrote in the WSJ article. “These hidden sites are filled with paid links to legitimate websites. Unbeknownst to the user, software built into the porn sites forces the user’s computer to click on these links, sometimes hundreds of times, sending a flood of computer-generated traffic to legitimate websites.

“No person is actually seeing or clicking on the ads, yet the operator of the scam collects commissions for directing traffic to sites like Web portal Lycos, video sites Mevio and Current TV, and others,” Steel continued. “And big advertisers, including Verizon Communications Inc. and TD Ameritrade Inc., are paying for ads that were never displayed to users. The websites say they weren’t aware they were collecting money for ads that weren’t shown.”

Among the sites so far linked to the scam are tube sites HqTubeVideos.com and Pornoxo.com. Ownership and administration for both of those sites is obscured by domain registrar Moniker’s privacy service.

HqTubeVideos and Pornoxo represent just the tip of the iceberg, though, according to AdSafe Media Ltd., which told the WSJ it discovered more than 1,000 websites that may be part of the subterfuge. In some cases, an AdSafe Media spokesperson said, individual consumers spawned as many as 5,000 “invisible ads” during a single visit to an infected porn site.

A spokesman for online fraud prevention firm Double Verify said large-scale advertising scams aren’t a new phenomenon. In fact, they’ve been around almost as long as the internet itself, but they continue to evolve. The current incarnation is simply a more sophisticated version of a “business model” that skims about 31 percent off the top of the estimated $100 million monthly online advertising expenditures Double Verify tracks.

And advertising scams are not limited to adult websites. Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Ben Edelman told the WSJ he comes across an average of 50 fraudulent advertising programs each month across “a broad network” of site types.