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Scientologists Advertising With Alias Web Sites

by Evan Shamoon on July 6, 2009 at 10:17 AM



Web and animation designer Reese Leysen is inundated with Google Adsense and YouTube ads on a daily basis, much like the rest of us Internet dwellers.

One day he decided to poke around a bit and noticed that the site for "Foundation for a Drug-Free World" was chock-full of top-dollar production, the sort that would be far out of the reach of a typical non-profit organization on a limited budget. This left him scratching his head.

Later on, however, he stumbled across "The Way To Happiness Foundation," and noticed more than a few parallels. "The site had the exact same technical design style and mentioned how the teachings behind its 'way to happiness' principles are based on a book written by L. Ron Hubbard," writes Leysen on his blog. A bit of searching turned up official references proving that the other sites were also run by the Church of Scientology. In other words, the Scientology folks are funding these sites, despite no official indications that they are connected.

While he does point out that he's not judging, per se, and that one's religious pursuits are indeed their own, he makes the crucial point: "[The] idea of billboards and banners all over the Web, advertising companies and non-profits that are secretly run by a religious organization with its own agenda is a scary one to me."

Yeah, us, too. [From: Ipower]

Tags: adsense, advertising, google, l ron hubbard, LRonHubbard, marketing, scientology, top, truth in advertising, TruthInAdvertising, youtube

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