And so to the fallout:

There’s a serious point to all this: lead-gen on Facebook, MySpace and other social media platforms has been a huge money-spinner for many publishers over the last year. With unsavory practices being brought to the fore by major tech news outlets, these kinds of clampdowns are going to affect many affiliates’ income streams pretty heavily. And in the future, we can no doubt expect an investigation by the FTC as well. Good times.