This is viral marketing at its finest. Yes, it's a search engine that enters you into a sweepstakes where you can win prizes that are targeted to you, the consumer. It's like using scientific instruments to measure the diameter of a Hostess Ding Dong. But really all it does is turn a robust search engine into something faintly evil, or maybe just deeply kitschy. Maybe science kitsch is what I've secretly wanted all along.
Bad taste is, after all, better than fascism.
Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who is having a nice day, thank you very much.