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Online diet services very successful, or thinly-disguised spam?

An article on Medical News Today suggests that online weight loss services can be very, very successful in helping one lose weight:

Now, Americans are even dieting online — seeking the tools, support and motivation of online communities to achieve weight loss goals.

A study by Brown University found that people who enrolled in a structured online dieting program lost three times more weight in six months than those who casually surfed the Internet for diet information.(2)

Normally, I would be extremely optimistic about this news. However, I am a little hesitant about this, because the rest of the article seems to be a paid advertisement for an online diet service, MyMedifast. So is this legitimate? Is it spam? I dunno.