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Unwanted Popups Boosting Web Traffic

Posted by kdawson on Mon Dec 11, 2006 04:47 PM
from the stealing-eyeballs dept.
The Internet
Most of us have experienced popups used for advertising. Now, some adware companies and advertiser networks are using popups (mostly from programs that users did not want installed) to directly boost traffic numbers for their customer Web sites. Net rating and measurement companies try to detect and discount such inflated traffic numbers, with mixed success.
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  • Unwanted what-now? (Score:5, Funny)

    by djh101010 (656795) * on Monday December 11 2006, @04:48PM (#17200290) Homepage Journal
    What are these "popups" of what you speak, please? /firefox

  • Warning! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Clever7Devil (985356) on Monday December 11 2006, @04:49PM (#17200302)
    Your stock values may be infected with SPYWARE!
    • This whole business will surely undergo mutual self destruction.

      While paying for refered clicks props up some very useful services (Google, probably + various artful collections of 18+ girls), most organisations that advertise this way are not really adding value. The spyware companies are not adding value either, but are just feasting on greed.

      I say let them all just get on with it and rip eachothers throats out.

  • As seen on CN (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xENoLocO (773565) * on Monday December 11 2006, @04:49PM (#17200306) Homepage
    CenterNetworks [centernetworks.com] reported this very early this morning...

    Entrepreneur.com's traffic dropped by 5 million when they stopped their popunder campaign. Pretty sad...
    • Entrepreneur.com's traffic dropped by 5 million when they stopped their popunder campaign. Pretty sad...

      Well, it's not like anyone was reading their ads anyway. Traffic doesn't help anything, especially if you annoy me to deliver the object.
  • or take what you paid for. I use Linux myself, but feel free to get a Mac and experience less of these spyware just the same. It is really pointless to use Windows, or rather to use Windows as a non Windows expert and then complain about such.

    • Re:Use an OS that has a lot less of these problems (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Clever7Devil (985356) on Monday December 11 2006, @05:02PM (#17200448)
      I myself am a Linux user. When I'm talking to someone about technology, in person, I inevitably shift the conversation towards F/OSS. But, am I the only geek getting just a little bit tired of reading these "you wouldn't have these problems if you just used Linux" posts? This is Slashdot. We know. I promise.
    • It's possible to get spyware infesting your OS that does this, but most of the popups have been browser weaknesses/features, not OS weaknesses. Linux doesn't encourage you to use IE the way Windows does, and Windows doesn't go out of its way to get you to use Konqueror, and the kind of people who click "Yes" on any dialog box offering to upgrade their browser are more likely to be Windows users, so there's a bit of correlation, but it's mainly a browser problem.

      I'm using an older Mozilla version and haven'

      • But pray that not many users will follow your advice or you will get the attention of the spammers and the situation will be the same with your "perfectly secure OS". So enjoy your minority while you can.

        In order to cause a security breech, they need motivation _and_ opportunity. And I didn't see him or anyone else say "perfectly secure OS". I can only conclude, therefore, that you're either ignorant, or a troll.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ajehals (947354)

        But pray that not many users will follow your advice or you will get the attention of the spammers and the situation will be the same with your "perfectly secure OS". So enjoy your minority while you can.

        This isn't an OS problem, sure its currently a Windows problem but it will happen to any OS where the user blindly installs software, and where that process is overly simple and in some cases automatic.

        Of course saying that, I doubt very much that even if Linux had a user base as large as the one Microsoft currently enjoys that the problem would be of the same scale, primarily because as a Linux user, even as a totally novice user, you can get all of your software from direct from whoever provided the dist

        • Re:Use an OS that has a lot less of these problems (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Phisbut (761268) on Monday December 11 2006, @06:23PM (#17201522)
          because as a Linux user, even as a totally novice user, you can get all of your software from direct from whoever provided the distribution you are using, and it becomes less likely that you would want to install some random screen saver or other application that you find on the web.

          If Jane Sixpack wants those bouncy smileys for her email, and the "official distribution channel" doesn't provide them, she will download them from a random website and install them, and if installing them requires the root password, then the root password it will get.

          The typical Windows user knows not to open random email attachments and not to execute software downloaded from random websites, but the "need" for smileys and other flashy-flashies trumps any security education.

          The problem is not the OS, it's the user. And I'd rather those users keep away from Linux.

      • But pray that not many users will follow your advice or you will get the attention of the spammers and the situation will be the same with your "perfectly secure OS". So enjoy your minority while you can.


        Yes, there's a large assumption by a bunch of people that Linux (or Mac OS X or FreeBSD or NetBSD) is 'perfectly secure', and yes, I agree with you that they are dead flat wrong.

        However, there's a large assumption by a bunch of people that if Linux were more popular, we'd see a lot more spyware, trojans, and viruses (oh my!) for Linux.

        While this is a true in a relative way, it doesn't take much to be 'a lot more' for Linux. Even with just half a dozen, you'd have 'a lot more'.

        However, it's important to note that no matter the popularity of Linux, there is no way it would ever have the depth or prervasiveness of malware problems present on the Windows platform. If anyone who actually knows anything about the operating system architecture and security of both the Linux and Windows platforms in depth wants to debate this point with me seriously, I welcome them. Assuming that spammers would have just as much luck with Linux or ther UNIXes as with Windows is just sheer lunacy.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by micpp (818596)
            The fact that you probably had to set all of that up specifically rather than it coming as standard is probably significant.
      • Who said anything about perfectly secure?
      • So are you implying that having pop ups invading ones OS is having their needs met? If not, then I don't see how you disagree as the tone of your post seems to imply. I also made the limitation of being a _non_ Windows expert. If things work that well for you in Windows, then you sir are a Windows expert. Again, I don't see how you contradict my points.
          • Fair enough. However, every now and then I heard of perfect experiences, while very regularly i see very poor experiences. So base my judgements based on the information I see regularly. I have Windows installed, and it seems to be free of viri and other malaware. However, I see the opposite very very often.
      • Also, lets be fair, you're assuming, as am I, that you've never been hacked.

  • They had it coming (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dtfinch (661405) * on Monday December 11 2006, @04:58PM (#17200404) Journal
    There's no honor amongst thieves. I just wish something more could be done to screw these companies that fund spammers and malware advertisers, like law enforcement doing its job or something. Is paying someone to do something illegal also illegal? For example, it's illegal to hire a hitman.
    • I've always wanted to know which assholes become developers for these companies. Somewhere out there some talented hackers are getting paid to screw up peoples systems. Very unethical!

      • I've always wanted to know which assholes become developers for these companies. Somewhere out there some talented hackers are getting paid to screw up peoples systems. Very unethical!
        I've been offered jobs that I thought were unethical (some like what we are talking about.) I wasn't interested.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by DittoBox (978894)
        Analyze any spyware, adware, hijackware, malware, virii etc. for any length of time, and you'll quickly realize that there is very, very little talent in the pool of "developers" that create this crap.

    • Is paying someone to do something illegal also illegal?

      Yes. The person soliciting the illegal activity is charged depending on what the solicited illegal activity was. In Texas this could be:

      • 15.02. CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY
      • 15.03. CRIMINAL SOLICITATION
      • 15.031. CRIMINAL SOLICITATION OF A MINOR

      i.e.: Paying someone to kill a person would be something like "Criminal Solicitation to commit Murder".

      The punishment is usually one degree lower than the solicited activity.

    • Someone ought to do a media expose' and actually hire a spamming company to send out a campaign, and then measure what kind of response they actually get. Given the look of many of the campaigns out there (from looking at the subject lines captured by my spam filter), I can't imagine what kind of complete idiot would fall for any of them. Quite possibly, it's not those getting spammed who are being taken, but the people who contracting a spammer for a spamvertising campaign that are. If it turns out that

  • Pop-up blocker? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by HAL9000_mirror (1029222) on Monday December 11 2006, @05:07PM (#17200530)
    What happens when one uses pop-blocker which kills the pop-up window? Is that a hit? I assume the pop-blocker kills the window before a connection is established to the target server?
    --Ram
    "So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak." --Sun Tzu, in The Art of War.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Pop-up scripts create a new pageviewer (new window or new tab) supplied with a target URL.

      Chronologically speaking:
      1. the pop-up window is created,
      2. that new window requests data from the target URL
      3. and finally displays the data.
      If you're ignoring/blocking scripts, the code to create a new window is not executed meaning that we never get to step #2.

    • I don't know about pop-ups in particular, but Adblock has (or at least had) a setting where you could choose either to download the ads and not display them, or not download them at all.

  • Why display these adds at all? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Buttonius (31377) on Monday December 11 2006, @05:21PM (#17200726) Homepage
    Wouldn't it be much smarter if these adware companies let their malware fetch the popup file (pretending to be any popular web browser) and not display it to the user? Most users would never notice the additional network traffic and, not having seen a sudden popup, would have little incentive to go hunting for the spyware.

  • I have said it before! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by erroneus (253617) on Monday December 11 2006, @05:41PM (#17200996) Homepage
    The current model for advertising costs is just wrong! The pricing structure needs to be one that doesn't inspire fraudulent activity. Print, radio and television advertisers cite circulation and ratings numbers. Web advertisers should cite some other "popularity" measure, but not necessarily one that inspires fraud. Google, for example, might be one such measure, but really, it should never be so precise as in number of hits. I think it should be something based essentially on the site's demographic and estimated audience as determined by some neutral third party. It'd be like the Neilson ratings in its own way. And let these third parties come up with their own trustworthy measurements and may the market gravitate to the best of those ratings companies.

    In this way, we would lose a great deal of fraud on the web simply because there will be lost incentive to have it.
    • Bingo!

      There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.

      Measure anything human activity with statistics and it can be fudged and defrauded.

      In this case, I think the more accurate measure would not be "web hits" but rather a measure of average time visiting said site. A pop-up ad is visted perhaps 1.2 seconds, while a legitimate site much longer, statistically speaking. Average clicks once on a site is another possible measure. Refering site is another item that can be used to uncover fraud.

      I t
      • There are a couple of issues, but I think paying for results will be the future of advertising. You'll pay for actual sales, or for advertising revenue actually generated.

        One way this could work would be for the advertiser to proxy the session. It could determine a sale was made and arrange appropriate payment. You don't want to have to trust the seller, or the advertiser.

  • I'm surprised... (Score:3, Informative)

    by j-turkey (187775) on Monday December 11 2006, @06:02PM (#17201256) Homepage

    I'm surprised that it took this long for advertisers to figure out that popunders/popups increase traffic. Back around 2000 when I was working for dot-coms, the ad-revenue based groups lived and died by traffic ratings (unique page impressions, etc) like Jupiter Media Metrics. When popunders started to reach critical mass, x10.com was pushed from nowhere into the top 5 -- overnight. I'm sure it cost them a pretty penny, but the result was evident over 6 years ago.

    Let's hope that advertisers take another 6 years to catch onto the next big thing.

  • One Way to Screw Spamers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Monday December 11 2006, @06:06PM (#17201298)
    One way to screw spammers would be for everyone to click on their links, then not buy anything. Spammers are paid by click-through counts. If companies start getting a lot of false click-throughs that they have to pay for, they'll soon either lower what they pay, or use other methods of bringing traffic to their sites. Lowered pay hurts the spammers when everyone then stops clicking through. The general concept is that if you can't ignore them, then bury them instead.
  • Would you 2.0 like to view my traffic statistics 2.0? I make 10 AJAX requests 2.0 per second when a visitor 2.0 is viewing a page on my site 2.0. It is perfectly legitimate 2.0, I assure you.

  • Someone at Slashdot is reading my mind! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by teebob21 (947095) on Monday December 11 2006, @07:19PM (#17202132) Journal

    How ironic that this story appeared today.

    Just last night, I was considering submitting a Ask Slashdot question on how other users deal with otherwise trustworthy sites that serve obtrusive popup/under ads. For example Merriam Webster's dictionary pages http://www.m-w.com/ [m-w.com] which I was directed to following a link in a ./ post. But I figured....popups? So 2001. Why bother the friendly folks with such a ancient topic?

    For those thinking I don't know how to manage my unwanted ad exposure, keep in mind I am running Firefox 2.0 with Pop-up blocking; typically a solid solution. The MW website, however, delivered 2 ads that broke past FF's utility. It left me with my old tactic: A good-old-fashioned "You just lost a customer" email. I have a text template to make the process quicker, so here's last nights email to the House of Definitions:

    To Whom it may concern:

    Please be advised that I will no longer be visiting your website nor advising it to my children or students. I visited your website today and was confronted with not one, but 2 popup ads on the definitions result page. One led me directly to http://www.vonage.com/startsavingnow/ [vonage.com] and the other was a kmart ad served by tribalfusion. Bear in mind that I use the Mozilla Firefox browser with Popup blocking active, and your website contains malicious code that defeats the pop-up window feature.

    The computer I use and the programs that I run belong to me, not to you. I have no issues with your Privacy Policy, and your cookie policy. I simply request that you communicate with your third-party providers to prevent them from displaying code on your website that hijacks your customer's browser in this manner. While you are not responsible for the advertising content in said ads, you are reponsible for the user experience when visiting your site. At the present, it is not an enjoyable experience for someone who does not wish to be deluged in advertising. In addition, by continuing to host code which overrides a core browser component makes your site a possible vector for virus/malware transmission, should either your server or the servers of one of your advertisers ever be compromised.

    I realize that advertising income supports your website, and more importantly your bottom line. The days when your core business was selling hardback dictionaries are over, and business models change.

    However, upon the visit to your page, I am confronted with 8 total ads; the two popup/popunder ads mentioned previously, one for Hostgator, 2 Google ads for a Scooby-Doo DVD, one large graphical ad for Qwest, and two tolerable text links to your affiliate partners. All I wanted was a definition...not a great deal on DSL service!

    As before, I will no longer be visiting or recommending your website or your products. There are other sources for the information you provide. In order for me to return, simple changes in your advertising strategy are requested, including the removal of popup/popunder advertising.

    Sincerely,
    Terry Hall

    We shall see what kind of response I get. The message has worked in the past with some smaller sites, including my local bank's website. Why they needed pop-ups for revenue, I'll never know.

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