Protect that IP!

You've all seen the common Classmates.com ads, which ask things like "She's a model now?" (Yeah, a model prisoner!). However, I just noticed that these particular ads block the context menu. Right click on them, and you get a special message box:



Oops. Once you right-click, you're hosed; now, with a click of the OK button, you're at the mercy of Classmates.com. Fortunately, they're either merciful or inept, because the result is an empty browser window:



I am guessing inept. Notice the stray character in the title of the first ad: Where are your old friends now? b - Microsoft Internet Explorer.

How did they know my first initial?

That's Just Creepy

Here's a pop-under for a new dating service:



Looks like everything else, huh? Check out the titlebar:

X10 - Microsoft Internet Explorer

You mean the same purveyors of voyeur cameras? You think that freak magnet might not be ironic?

Probably not, since the ad depicts an up-skirt view waiting to happen.

Be Careful Out There, Fans.

CNet has the story on Pop-up program reads keystrokes, steals passwords.

Remember, practice safe computing: come to Pop-Up Mocker whenever you want to see a pop-up.

Before You Click Yes, Ask Yourself A Couple of Questions

1. Have I clicked ads before?
   
   
2. No matter how many scans or software products I download from pop-up ads, does the problem just get worse?
   
   
3. Do you really think that clicking No on this window is better than clicking Yes?

Rhetorical questions only; I don't think I want to know.

Stage WSPA

Here's an important insight into sea mammals, brought to you by WSPA, the World Society for the Protection of Animals:



There is no humane way to kill a whale at sea, but WSPA offers the following alternatives:

• Humanely hatchet the buggers when they leap out of the water, as they're wont to do.
  
  
• The whalefighter events at nadarridas worldwide are humane, since the arenas are not actually the sea. Even the picadors are okay.
  
  
• If you want to humanely kill a whale, lure it to a hotel bar in Fresno, buy it a few drinks, and escort it to a room. It's also particularly humane if you're just after tasty whale kidney to excise said kidney and leave the whale in the bathtub with a note to call 911 written on the mirror in lipstick.
  
  
• Dynamite fishing is humane as long as it only nets you tuna, dolphins, octopi, and other non-whale denizens of the deep.

Granted, the flash slides in this particular presentation don't say that, but I recognize that WSPA's ad budget is limited.

Today's 404

Brought to me by ad.trafficmp.com:



I don't know the industry to know if the company whose ad I should have seen was actually charged for its bungled delivery, but given the scrupulous nature of the sort of companies who intrude and annoy for a living, I'm not optimistic.

AOL for Heavy Hand

Hey, I like the Chicago Tribune's Web site, which is why I tolerate its pop-ups like this:



What is my "broadband" connection missing? Hmm, chat rooms for perverts and phishers, extra AOL advertising, and a proprietary browser, not to mention a pile of extra software on my PC?

Whoops, I think I summed it up too succinctly.

Also, thanks to the Chicago Tribune, AOL, or their pop-up ad provider for throwing an extra pop-up when I closed the AOL ad:



No purchase necessary? Purchase what, exactly? Pah.