What's the 404?

Today's 404 pop-up brought to us by ad.trafficmp.com:



Thanks for sharing your technical ineptitude and reflecting poorly upon yourself, but also upon the Web site that lets you dish up ads.

Undoubtedly, you're still billing some poor sap for this "impression."

Look But Don't Click

The La Crosse Tribune reports a story entitled "Internet pop-ups lead to jacked-up phone bill":

Jeff Reikowski is dreading the arrival of his March phone bill. Over the past two months, he has been charged for more than $1,000 in international calls he didn't make, to a place he'd never heard of — Sao Tome.

He called the phone company to dispute the January bill. Several conversations later, about $800 in disputed charges for that month were dropped.

But he's still on the hook for more than $300, including taxes, for February calls to the same number in Sao Tome, which is the capital city of the Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, islands in the Gulf of Guinea on the west side of Africa.

Reikowski is apparently the victim of an Internet scam in which closing one of those pop-up ads actually downloads a program that captures the user's phone number and uses it to ring up very expensive calls.

There's probably a little more to this story than that. You should have set your Internet browser security to prompt for downloads and you should always click No. 'Nuff said.

Methinks that Jeff downloaded some special photo- or movie-viewing software, wink wink nudge nudge.

Still, although I report on them, I never click pop-up ads. Neither should you.

(Link seen on Fark.)

A Worse Solution Through Software

Another adware company lures you in:



Hey, how about instead of downloading this bit of trojan horsedom, I simply double-click and use the Date/Time Properties applet to change them? I guess computer-literate people aren't the target audience. But then again, you don't get rich dishing up targeted pop-up ads by overestimating the intelligence of computer users.

What, you get a message that says you need administrator privileges, and you don't have them? There might be a reason for that, Chester. Go back to your technical writing.

Of What?

I don't understand this a bit, but here's an invitation:



Of what, it doesn't say. The Scientologists? An international communist club? A collective hive mind that will sap your individuality?

I would have clicked through, but I am a man who likes to stand A Part.

Let Me Rephrase That

The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal has a nifty little javascript that throws a pop-under on browser close:

Opinion: Popup ads are annoying.
Fact: This is one offer worth the annoyance.

Perhaps a little rephrasing is in order. Fact: Popup ads annoy me. There you go, no judgement, mere fact with a sentence written with active voice. Want another? Fact: I never buy anything from popup ads. I could go on all day.

You want to throw around offers worth their annoyances, how about sending me another free four week trial of the Wall Street Journal? I promise I'll consider buying the cow this time.

At least it's only on close, and not unload; this means all I have to do to avoid this particular popup is to go to a different site when I am done with OpinionJournal. Still, onClose is kinda insidious. How does it feel, Wall Street Journal, to use a technology tested and vetted on porn sites everywhere? So I hear, anyway.

Tip!

Remember, you can right click any of these ads and select View Image.... to see it in its full-size glory.

Thanks for Sharing Your Personal Deficiencies

And a special tip of the spade to Nicheseek, who shared its personal problems with me by popping under a server error:



Default error message, no less, complete with mock mailing address. Undoubtedly, pop-under purveyors would like to keep themselves a little obscure, so maybe the mock mailing address is not in error. Still, were I so inclined, I could tell this guy:

Registration Service Provided By:
Contact: mike_07650@yahoo.com
Visit:

Domain name: NICHESEEK.COM
Registrant Contact:
The Business Resource Institute
David Finkelstein (info@usellabiz.com)
954-609-9640
Fax: None
1440 Coral Ridge Drive - Suite 167
Coral Springs, FL 33071
US

something was amiss, but I am not that helpful. Besides, he's the technical contact, too, which means probably not technical at all.

Savings Are Easy

I've seen banners for these survey doohickeys or whatever they are, but I got a pop-up today for it:



Smokers 21 and Older: Be Eligible to Receive $20 or More in Cigarette Savings. Hey, smokers, if you're looking for savings, I can help you save more than twenty bucks.

Quit smoking.

I mean, if you're trying to be frugal and all, worrying about a measly twenty bucks when you're blowing money like smoke on smokes.

Geez, I wish I could be so lucky as to have something extraneous in my life I could cut out to sock a little away.

Free IQ Test

I am sure you've all seen the Tickle.com IQ pop-under ads. Some of them depict Einstein and all prompt you to click through to a Web site of some sort; social networking or love finder of some sort.

I particularly liked this one:



What's your real IQ? Click here and find out?

So if your IQ is pretty low, you click through, wot? I guess I passed because I did not.