Hi Gaetan, Mats, Kevin and All,

Do not pay anything to Earth Emphasis.

It’s a hoax. We tried it and found they took the money but never published anything.

And recently, there were some fraud activities regarding our credit card, which is now cancelled.

I recommend to be careful and don’t engage with them. We are now talking to the police to get this web site closed down.

Regards

Steffen (from Australia)

I also got this invitation but trashed it. I think it is just another easy way of making money.

Thanks! I have to mention that I am amazed that only one answer was posted. Does it mean that few are invited? I would have liked to hear from someone that accepted the invitation.

Hi Gaétan.

I had this email recently too, and like Mats I deleted it. Personally, it just didn't seem worth the cost. The amount of extra exposure your work would get seems quite minimal compared to the $35 cost, especially when there are so many other free ways to share your work online (including this website)!

Regards,

Kevin

Thank you!

I have decided to do the same and delete the invitation.

Hi Gaetan, Mats, Kevin and All,

Do not pay anything to Earth Emphasis.

It’s a hoax. We tried it and found they took the money but never published anything.

And recently, there were some fraud activities regarding our credit card, which is now cancelled.

I recommend to be careful and don’t engage with them. We are now talking to the police to get this web site closed down.

Regards

Steffen (from Australia)

Hi Steffen,

Thanks for the warning! I hope that the police can help you.

Regards,

Kevin

Thanks for anwering my quation before I asked it:-)

All the best

Anders

I received this emal today and know how to deal with it now. Thanks for the question!

ResearchGate doing some valuable public service. I got this too. To the trashcan. Thanks everyone.

Similar service may be going around as EnvironmentProgress.com

Hi Yevgeniy,

Thanks for the observation. Do you know if this specific site (EnvironmentProgress.com) is asking for money to include an article in their list of "Featured Articles"? If this is the case, as with "Earth Emphasis", can they still claim that they are providing their "readership with the latest and most significant research in all areas of environmental studies"? Should they add to that sentence "...providing that the authors are willing to pay"?

I wonder (1) if many areas of science are plagued with this, (2) whether scientists are consulting these sites instead of the primary literature, and worse: (3) whether these sites are eventually creating a bias in citation expectancy.

Cheers,

Gaétan

I received this email for a publication and it was written similarly like mentioned above but from a person with a different name, also asking for $35. I googled that person but couldn't find anything, however I googled the website and IP address was based in Texas but the the websites states they are Canadian. Also I googled the address and found an old address that was identical for Environmentprogress and Earthemphasis. I discovered that the actual articles listed on those sites are identical. I also found there are similar sites for disciplines in Psychology, etc.

Based on my prior webmaster experience, this seems like spam, but I wouldn't go and say 100% to take down these sites yet. Would need to check traffic and see how many hits/views result from this site and if all the work presented was truly purchased with consent from authors. I'm fine if the website is attempting to provide some exposure to research, even at a cost, just for the sake of trying and having a good cause. But my main issue is that I googled certain words/sites/articles and found that it is difficult to come across the websites for the actual literature that is being shown.

It seems that they are still working, as I just got the same invitation today. My policy is beware of anybdoy asking for money that cmae from websites that have no clear institutional addresses in the "Contact us" section. If they are legitimate, they would not hide their street address!