Well, there are a few angles.
On one hand, there is no evidence that they are doing anything illegal. On the other hand, I personally think they are very sneaky and misleading. There is also the possibility that they are running bidding bots, which would be reprehensible, but is obviously a big accusation that is difficult to prove.
At the end of the day, people should be careful with their money on the internet, and all you have to do to see through these guys is watch an item in its final seconds of bidding (which often stretch into hours).
Would I recommend them to a friend? No.
As for add space, we usually have long term campaigns from local game distributors. One such campaign has currently lapsed and is being renegotiated. In the interim, there is some free space in that particular slot. I was not involved in this campaign, but I know that we were approached by an agency to run banners for this site. The site checked out from a legal perspective, and from there, we don't really have the room to discern. Unfortunately, in this business you can't be too picky about who advertises with you. Unless you guys want to start paying a monthly subscription fee :P
We obviously do prefer to have cooler brands being brandished across the site, and we usually do have pretty nice banners, I think. Having said all that, we will be having an internal meeting to discuss whether to continue with the Smokoo campaign.




