Do people get paid to advertise in their answers?

Question

like a lot of times i see an advertisment as an answer. someone will be ask a question about a ps3 and they will give an answer like "you can get a free ps3 at this site" its really annoying, do they get paid for this?

Answer 1

This is called posting spam.  It's against Yahoo! policy to answer a question like this.  The poster doesn't get paid for it from Yahoo! and faces having his/her account suspended or cancelled outright.  

The driving force behind this is that the spammer considers Answers as a free advertising space.  They post their spam and hope that a few people will follow the link.  Depending on the site, the spammer might get something for causing somebody to click on the link or they may hope that out of several hundreds of spam postings somebody may sign up.  They get some kind of pay or credit from that site for this.  

If you see any answers like this, feel free to use the "report it" button in that answer.  Click the button selecting how you feel the answer is a violation.  Against Yahoo! guidelines or Illegal.  Give as many details as you can about the post and click the "report it" button below the box.  For an answer that doesn't answer the question, write in the box "Not an answer to the question".   If you see a question that is spam, do the same thing.  Click the "report it" button, select the button for "Violates guidelines" or "Illegal" if it's encouraging some illegal activity.  State the reason, and hit the "Report It" button below the box.  Yahoo! encourages all users to report posts that aren't answers to questions or that aren't valid questions.  

Right at this moment, Yahoo! is having some problems with Answers and reported posts aren't being removed.  Don't follow any links.  There are currently several posts, floods actually, with links that lead to virus sites.  With the Yahoo! problems, these answers and links aren't being removed.  

  

Added

It looks like the spam is finally being removed.  The question you have linked in the details only has 2 answers now and no spam.  This is what should happen to spam answers, it should be reported promptly for removal.  Posting spam will get you suspended.