A new affiliate marketing scam currently spreading on Facebook is preying on people's curiosity. Users are lured into taking surveys and allowing a rogue application to spam their profiles with promises of shocking crime pictures from Google Street View.

The scam starts with a spam message posted on someone's wall reading “OMG! Shocking Real Crimes caught live on Google Streets. This is SO Unbelievable and you have got to see it! http://tiny.cc/[censored]”. Clicking on the URL takes users to a rogue application page, which displays the Google Street View logo and another enticing message.

Users are encouraged to click on a big blue button in order to “See the world's most EMBARRASSING and SHOCKING CRIME photos that were caught live on Google Streets”. It's true that pictures taken by Google Street View do sometimes reveal various crimes, like illegal parking, indecent exposure, drug dealing or even burglaries. But, there's none of those in this scam.

Clicking on the button prompts a standard Facebook "request for permission" window. This dialog informs users that the application wants access to post on their wall. This is so that it can propagate virally by sending similar spam messages to its victim's friends and family.

However, even if the application is allowed to do this, no Google Street View pictures will be revealed. Instead, users are asked to complete a survey in order to verify that they are human and not automated bots; which for some unexplained reason would want access to the elusive crime photos.

The surveys serve multiple purposes. First, through an affiliate marketing system, the scammers are rewarded with cash for the traffic driven to such advertising websites. Furthermore, the pages collect personal information from users, which is later used to send them more spam.

And finally, the many offers presented throughout these surveys try to sign them up for premium services. Users who fall victim to this scam should immediately remove the rogue messages that were posted on their walls, as well as delete the offending application from their account's Application Settings.

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