Pop Up Mocker

Countdown to Countdown

2005-10-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

Man, I was in eager anticipation for what happened when this countdown reached zero:

But instead of something interesting, some message indicating that I had failed, or some reward for watching the ad without closing it for a whole minute, it rewarded me by....starting the countdown over!

Fortunately, I am easily amused; as a matter of fact, I've got it open on my desktop right now to help me with all my countdown needs.

Grab That....Heart, Yeah, Heart

2004-07-23T09:50:00.000-07:00

Angelfire, the free Web hosting bunch, is throwing up this ad as part of its handful (two or more) that display when you load a page hosted there:

Capture Her Heart and get a....

Well, friends, what do you think it is?

A slap for improper use of hands?
A restraining order for the same?
Immortality, power, or whatever that guy in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was after?
Lesson in proper use of capital letters from an expert, such as the one who wrote this tag line?

Feel free to invent your own!

Also, Get a Free Apostrophe

2004-07-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

Not only do you get an unfree (at least, that's what I assume the footnote says) PlayStation 2 with this ad, you get a free extra apostrophe!

You can use that apostrophe anywhere you would like, including places where it doesn't naturally go!

Four Out Of Five Dentists Hate Pop-Up Ads

2004-07-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

Hey, Colgate, you're not building any good brand karma when you throw full motion-and-sound commercial pop-under ads like this one: You better just learn your lesson, or I am going to tell the world that Colgate contains sodium lauryl sulfate, a substance that poses a significant cancer risk.

Tickle Me This

2004-07-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Tickle:

I really would like to help you by debugging this annoying pop-under ad you sent me:

My company charges $65 an hour for debugging services. Please let us know if we can be of service, and if not service, at least as much annoyance as you are.

Most Pop-Up Click Throughs Are Accidents

2004-07-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

Techdirt links to a story about a study that indicates that up to 90% of all pop-up ad click throughs are accidental.

And the other 10% all have x10 cameras aimed at their 4ug3 Manh00!!d even as we speak.

Probably not, but I have to wonder if that other ten percent isn't "accidental" because the ads themselves are designed in such a fashion as to deceive the user into clicking through with a jpeg close button.

Am I Duffer Or Not?

2004-07-09T22:41:00.000-07:00

Another blogger has a problem with an Orbitz pop-up ad.

The real question, unanswered, is did he click?

Subtlety Is For The Unsuccessful

2004-07-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

Hey, all right, check out the latest pop-under dished up courtesy the "free" Web counters from Bravenet:

Click for full size

It's a full-size browser window advertising a company that can help you successfully part with your money:

What is Lain-Hamp Co.? We’re a successful Home-Based Mail Order-Information Sales/Network-Marketing company that has put together a collection some of the best income/business opportunities; online advertising tools; Traffic Builders and Lead Generators all on one user-friendly Website! Our main focus is helping YOU to succeed in your business venture; because when YOU succeed we succeed. Mail Order/Network-Marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry. Never before has there been an industry that has more untapped potential to help so many people than the Network Marketing industry. It is also a proven equal opportunity business that is very easy to maintain not to mention the fact that it can offer very nice profits too!

Scroll through several screens worth of turgid prose, and you get the contact information:

Contact Information

Elaine Hampton – Owner

Lain@myeweb.com

OFFICE HOURS

Monday – Friday

(10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CST)

Business Phone

(847) 778-0479

Fax Number

(847) 625-8483

Yeek, what a n00b.

Protect that IP!

2004-06-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

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

2004-06-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

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.

2004-06-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

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

2004-06-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

Have I clicked ads before?
No matter how many scans or software products I download from pop-up ads, does the problem just get worse?
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

2004-06-28T18:00:00.001-07:00

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

2004-06-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

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

2004-06-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

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.

Bravenet Popup Watch

2004-06-16T18:21:00.000-07:00

Hey, I got a pop-up when reading Heretical Ideas. That can mean only one thing:

Yep, there it is, in the bottom of the right sidebar.... free counter by Bravenet.

Mocking Spam

2004-06-16T18:17:00.000-07:00

Hey, you didn't come here to see someone mock spam, I hope. Because we don't do that here.

However, if that's what you want, perhaps you should go here.

Because I want to serve my readers. And because Harvey of Bad Example said to.

Right-Sizing the Pop-Up

2004-06-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

No, I don't mean laying them off or laying them to rest. I mean blowing the window size out of proportion to the ad, like this:

That's professional, ainna?

I appreciate I don't need to buy anything or receive anything to merit the privilege of your eternal marketing programs. That's not a bug, it's a feature!

I particularly appreciate that I got this ad as an onClose event from another ad. That's another new tactic I love. You mainstream marketers are about seven years behind the porn sites, but you just keep working at it. Hey, I got an idea for you: Kiosk mode.

Targeted Mocking

2004-06-14T19:57:00.000-07:00

Come on, guys, I just love the ads thrown by Next Student, the Student Loan Consolidating Company (or something). What's not to love?

After all, there's the minimalist ad that really does not beg for clicking:

Save 59%! Why, that could be me! But without further information, I'm not going to heed. Of course, since I run a blog called Pop-Up Mocker, it's a given that I'll never heed a pop-up ad, but please, humor me and pretend I am a gullible consumer. A gullible, graduated-from-college-in-the-last-ten-years-consumer. Better make that "beauty school" or something. Never mind.

They also offer the inherent anti-intellectualism of this ad:

Brother, I don't know about you, but I graduated with degrees in English and Philosophy from a liberal arts college, and I am now making upper five figures. If I had learned mathematics, chemistry, or other science, undoubtedly I would make more. It's not what you've studied, it's how you apply it.

Particularly my English degree, which keeps my away from similes like A pile of student loans that siphon away your hard-earned cash like a fraternity guy with a beer bong. Geez, you cretins, that metaphor breaks down early.

A bong is not a siphon, it's a funnel.
A beer bong drains beer, and no frat guy will separate me from my Guinness as long as I have fingernails and teeth.
Would you trust your money with a fraternity guy?

I don't get it. The inanity of all these Next Student ads gives me a headache. And cottonmouth. Perhaps I should have let the fraternity guy have the last four Guiness in that fifteen pack after all.

New Tactic?

2004-06-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the friendly folks at Opinion Journal and other old media sites, we can see a new pop-up ad tactic displayed: the pages now throw a pop-up ad when you click a link, so that the pop-up displays over the current window while the new content loads in your main browser window.

I know, it's a small price to pay for free content, and it's even easier to close quickly than a pop-under ad, but jeez, if your magazine fell through my mail slot and the blow-ins started scampering around, piddling on my floor and chewing the edges of my sofa, I'd feel inconvenienced, too.

Everybody Down! It's a Honda Ad!

2004-06-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

Jeez, Louise, ABCNews.com served up this monster Flash-animated ad today:

The size was maximized to fit my desktop, which I keep set to a rather high resolution. Sorry you don't get to see the whole storyline, climax, and denouement because I just capture a single frame.

But it does lead to a question....how many other husbands has this woman had, and how many met mysterious fates in unpopulated fields, leading to the woman "looking" for them? I'm just asking.

Wowzers, guys, thanks for the blast.

A Clue?

2004-06-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

Bill Hobbs took notice of yesterday's treatise on pop-up ads I was seeing on blogs. Commenters to his post admitted seeing them occasionally, while others said we're all crazy and/or have adware.

I did a little more poking around, and here's how I responded over there:

Good evening. I thought I would follow-up here.

I think the chances of adware are low; as I mentioned at the post on Pop-Up Mocker, I've seen the pop-up ads from two different computers, including one in a highly secure environment where the user cannot install software at all. If it is adware, it's very selective adware; I've seen it only on the two blogs I mentioned, yours and Balloon Juice.

I implied, or tried to, that I suspected it came from an external script called by your template, and when I looked at your page source, I saw the BlogAd script first, which is why I named it.

I would guess it's the free BraveNet counter. Both you and Balloon Juice use the free counter, so it's another external script you share. Also, if you visit the knowledge base for the counter, you can find this insight:

All banner and popup ads will be removed from your service.

So that's my working crackpot theory for now: Free Bravenet Counters throw pop-up ads at intervals. I haven't tested to see if it's random intervals, a set number of page loads, or tied to the counter number, but hey, I have a life. I mean, another blog to maintain. That's my additional two cents worth.

A Whodunit!

2004-06-09T18:33:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, who or what is putting pop-under ads on blogs?

I've seen this happen on occasion for a couple of weeks now. As you know, I surf without pop-up blocking technology in certain situations so that I can explore the seamy underbelly of Internet commerce for you. I've been known to hit a number of blogs on my other blog's blogroll. Once in a while, a click on the blog roll would open a pop-under, too.

The First Time I Saw It

I'd narrowed the behavior to Balloon Juice. Want to see? Here goes:

Note the titlebar to the pop-under, claiming ownership.

An online casino ad! How quaint.

I asked John Cole, proprieter of Balloon Juice, and he had no idea what I was talking about. He uses pop-up blockers and hasn't seen this, and apparently has not sold this particular "space" for his own benefit.

Here are a couple other ads that have popped up while I have enjoyed Cole's commentary:

Here are some URLs to other ads I have seen rotated under Balloon Juice but didn't capture. Enjoy the complete beauty of the animated GIF until their companies issue a cease-and-desist to me:

Now, here's the thing: The pop-unders don't appear on every page load. They show up at random intervals. You can reload the page four or five times, and the pop-under opens only on the sixth. Could this be an intelligent decision on the part of the marketer, who expects blogs to be opened from blogrolls, more than one at a time? It certainly would mask the offending blog, wouldn't it?

And Then I Saw It Again

Last night, I saw Bill Hobbs.com was throwing them:

Again, the titlebar shows the calling page before it loads the HTML for the new page.

It's a common screensaver ad.

Here are two other ads I've seen load under Bill Hobbs' blog:

I contacted Bill Hobbs, and he, too, had no idea. Tonight, I have not seen any pop-unders on his site, although I have certainly spiked his traffic reloading the site.

Could It Be Adware on My Computer?

Yes, it could be. However, I have tried this on two computers, on two networks. One environment features a paranoid guy who refuses to download anything from the Internet, and the other features a professional network administration staff that refuses to let any user, even paranoid guys, download anything from the Internet.

Also, in my rambling amongst blogs and other sites, this behavior is only consistent between these two sites as described above.

Brian J. Speculates

The ads are rotated, and represent heavily rotated ads. You will see these ads under some mainstream magazine sites and The Drudge Report. However, the casino ads introduce an interesting wrinkle; you won't see those under larger Web sites such as CNN or Fox News.
I suspect, but have no proof, that one of the external scripts these guys have in their blog templates is responsible for the pop-unders, and both call BlogAds. Maybe they both embed the same counter or something, but I haven't looked that deeply.
Could it be a particularly unscrupuluous advertiser that dishes up pop-unders from a third party to underwrite a portion of their own advertising costs?

Any further answers are beyond my technological ken. Hey, I am a tester by trade, fellows; I see the behavior and I report it and I let those wiser than me figure it out.

So turn off your pop-up blocking technology and go take a look. Make sure I am not crazy.

And bloggers: be careful out there. Make sure no one is piggybacking on your success by stealing advertising revenue from you.

Update: As alluded to in this post, it looks as though BraveNet's started dishing up pop-up ads with their free counters. This campaign seems to be relatively new, but I've seen the ads on Pejmanesque and Asymmetrical Information now, too. Whenever I see the extra window and flashing icon on my taskbar now when opening a blog, I know to look for the Bravenet counter, and so far, it's always been there.

Breaking Free from the Backs of Magazines

2004-06-08T17:28:00.000-07:00

Want to make money stuffing pop-under ads? Here's the program for you!

Research group for software analysis....100% free.....financial freedom....profitable and lasting business....

Why are your fingers crossed behind your back, sir?

Note that this ad pops open a complete browser window with address bar and buttons. Amateurs.

Can't Afford Your Own Pop-Up Ad?

2004-06-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

Undertone Networks has a deal for you!

For a smaller fee, you can annoy a user only 1/9th as much as a real pop-under ad!

Best of luck, Undertone, mastering the use of character entities to escape that nasty, unrenderable character that permeates this particular sample.

A Pop-Under Odyssey

2004-06-08T17:13:00.000-07:00

Recently, while visiting ESPN.com to follow as closely as possible (for an American) the Stanley Cup playoffs, I went on a strange pop-under ad odd-I-see. Come, let me recreate it for you:

On page load, a pop-under opens. It's minimized, see, so I can see it on the taskbar but it's not a regular pop-up sized dialog box. I can't click it and set focus to it or display it because it's only minimize/maximizable. There is no restore. So I right click and maximize it, and I am treated to this beauty:

Whoa! Sorry for the scroll. Is that a 404 from the ad server, or what? Who cares? I right click it and close it, whereupon I am greeted with this offer:

Sweet! One simple inattentive click, ENTER, or press of the space bar and suddenly I'm searching with the unfamous qsrch.com. So I click No, whereupon another ad displays:

Angelina Joile in a Riddler blindfold. I've had dreams like that, but I don't want to lose the PG-13 rating on this blog, so I'll keep them to myself.

The whole thing illustrates how Internet sites that pad their underline with ad revenue from pop-up ads really don't audit the ads that display, nor do they approve or even pay attention to the content and behavior of advertisements that their sites spawn. If I were in marketing for these sites, I would carp incessantly about the difficulties of building a brand when you're letting taggers pay for advertising on the side of your building.

Of course, my marketing assistant alter-ego would have been gone in the first round of layoffs, but hey.

Won, Received for Participation in Our Program, You Say Tomato, I Say Potato

2004-06-08T17:04:00.000-07:00

Here you go, you're a winner!

You win if you do the dastardly things we want you to! No purchase necessary since you're not using legal tender, you're bartering your immortal soul! Muhahaha!

Also, you idjits have used the wrong article in your titlebar.

Thank you! I am here all week.

Yes, I Know

2004-06-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

The fact that Blogspot dishes up innumerable Google ads for products that "block" pop-up ads in the banner at the top of the page is not lost upon me.

Still, this site is Pop Up Mocker, not Banner Mocker, not Spam Mocker. So deal with it. It's free for both of us.

Also, do not trust the banner ads nor the downloads which promise to block pop-ups, either.

Thank you, that is all.

The Technology War Escalates

2004-06-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

TechDirt reports that pop-up advertisers are working to thwart the pop-up blocking technologies deployed by Yahoo!, Google, and so on.

Of course they are. Because stupid people respond to pop-up ads.

There's your enemy. The solution is education, not technology or legislation. Hey, that's what I am here for.

It's certainly not the power, fame, fortune, or hot chicks depicted in the pop-up ads.

I Hope It's 3-D

2004-06-04T19:19:00.000-07:00

Kudos to whomever's delivering Xerox's ads to Dilbert.com, because they're spitting up two pop-up windows with the very same ad in them on loading the Web site:

Perhaps the user should move them, adjust the color on the monitor, and put on 3-d glasses for some extra effect. I don't know.

Maybe the subtext is Xerox copies. I don't know.

I do know it's not just this particular ad, though; sometimes I've seen other Xerox ads duplicated.

Who cares? Just takes two clicks instead of one to close them.

When You're Too Lazy For Drudge

2004-06-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

So, you want to be a hep cat and get your news off of the "Internet", but you're too stupid to remember the URLs for The Drudge Report, Fark, Fox News, or CNN? Perhaps you're too lazy to type the URL into your Web browser. Fortunately, there's a solution for you!

Daily delivery to your inbox. That is, once a day.

That way, you can also sacrifice the real-time advantage the World Wide Web offers, too.

We won't give your address to spammers! Undoubtedly true, but you'll probably receive an e-mail filled with sponsors and mere links to stories that take you to pages laden with flashing advertisements....and that's the best for which you can hope.

Sign me down.

Disinteractive

2004-06-02T18:56:00.000-07:00

After I posted yesterday about an ad which was larger than the pop-under window, I've seen a couple like it. However, this one represents a stunning achievement of oversight:

Look carefully at how the edit boxes disappear off the edge of the displayed area. You can use the TAB key to move to the other controls and the submit button, but the window suppresses its natural scroll instinct. By making it less user-friendly, the ad-dishing company seems to understand that the user's going to just close the ad anyway, without actually trying to get more information from the ad-disher's client.

Crikey! They're more cynical than I am!

Change in Policy

2004-06-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start posting the screen captures in their full sizes so you can see the ads without extra work. You don't like it? Don't come back! Of course, you're not here now, so I'm not really insulting you. No, please, don't go.....

Promising

2004-06-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

Hey, check out this Exelon ad:

Is it genius in making an interactive ad which the user must scroll to read the litany of market fluff, or poor design? I just don't know!

No Bananas for Your Code Monkey

2004-06-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

Thanks for sharing your technical ineptitude, fellows:

Back to the restaurant counter for that fellow.

On the other hand, it's more educational for viewers than whatever ad should have appeared.

Off Topic

2004-05-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

It's not a pop-under ad, but blogger Trey Givens has captured and preserved an obnoxious banner ad, which is not so much shaped as a banner by as a sidebar. But he's not a con-e-sewer like me.

False Trilemma

2004-05-29T07:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice Marxist bit to pop-under:

You've seen these survey-style pop-up ads. Can Kerry beat Bush? Should US pull out of Iraq? (which never has my favorite answer, by the way: Promise to, but "accidentally" don't until it's finished.)

Oddly enougn, this thing pops under conservative-themed sites.

Anti-capitalist cretins.

Klaxon! Klaxon!

2004-05-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

At least this one doesn't lie to you outright:

However, by blending the word "infected", which tends to refer to viruses, with SPAM!!!, which is completely separate from viruses and doesn't typically include viruses but may include pornographic pictures, this company tries to confuse its potential customers. And frighten them.

Confused, frightened, and gullible? Click here! Sounds like this company respects you, gentle user.

Also, note that guaranteed 100% solution to unwanted spam that does not involve unplugging your modem/network cable is lying.

Tickle Shows the 404

2004-05-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

I got this handy 404 from Tickle in a pop-up today:

Well, of all the 404s I've chronicled, it's the best. It makes it look as though I requested the pop-up ad, and if I am patient and refresh it, I can see Einstein's mug or a quiz to determine my real IQ.

By the way, how do you upgrade a pop-under ad, and do I really want to know?

Trippy

2004-05-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

Wow, check out this recursive ad:

I mean, it's in a dialog box, but the ad itself is designed to look like a dialog box, complete with Windows standard dialog Minimize/Maximize/Close buttons on the pseudo titlebar. The joke's on the fool who inadvertently clicks the fake close button, because the whole dialog pops open the Free Toys whatever.

Remember, gentle consumer, nothing advertised for free on the Internet is without cost. Muhahahaha!

Added to the C.V.

2004-05-23T19:07:00.000-07:00

Pop-Up Mocker is now an official resource of the Marshall (Minnesota) Adult Education program.

Thanks for the recognition, fellows!

I am sneaking up on Lileks by flanking him in his own state!

Acthung!

2004-05-19T17:34:00.000-07:00

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's online site, StLToday.com, has been puking up pop-unders from this company for some time now:

The whole line of ads implies that the United States government wants you to use Next Student. They also claim that they're a free service. Just like any refinancing is free; you just change who you pay the interest to. They even say it in the ad, "You save money. We make money."

Still, they're really skirting the edge of impersonating some sort of government program. Cooperate with the government. If you're a college graduate, or even a college drop-out, who falls for it, I suppose you deserve whatever you get from a financial organization that advertises in pop-up ads to low-priced online sites.

"Next Student, we're gonna school ya."

Another Test

2004-05-19T17:16:00.000-07:00

Tickle has tried it before, but now they're trying it again:

Are you smart? Not if you click this button.

There are plenty of places on the Web to take quizzes. However, Tickle ain't one.

PS: Here's a quiz. Where's the grammatical error in this pop-up?

Reminder

2004-05-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

If the ad's rendered too small for you to view comfortably, you can right click the ad and select View Image to see the ads below in their full glory.

Tautology of the Day

2004-05-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

Here you go:

This is not, in fact, a banner ad.

Benefit: You can close it.

Drawback: You cannot just ignore it.

Man, did they think we would be curious enough to click it to find out what was so important that it couldn't be advertised in a banner ad? Criminey, I used to think that pop-up marketers were the dregs of the advertising industry. But they're not even dregs. They're actually mud that some prankster put into the bottom of your cup.

Whenu Wish Upon A Star

2004-05-14T19:41:00.000-07:00

I once wished ruinnation upon Whenu.com.

Looks like it's beginning:

Yahoo and Google have disabled links to controversial adware maker WhenU after the company was accused of engaging in unauthorized practices aimed at boosting its search rankings, WhenU's top executive confirmed Thursday.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

(Link seen on TechDirt.)

Fake Authenticity

2004-05-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

Kudos to those fool bastards at Spyhunter, who have taken the name of a really cool videogame and have sullied it forevermore. Also, let's hope they cannot weather the litigation should Symantec decide to levy it.

See this?

That looks a lot like Norton Anti-Virus, doesn't it?

Does Symantec have a case? I hope so!

The Most Insidious Pop-Up I Have Ever Seen

2004-05-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

Well, this one takes the cake:

When it popped under the Drudge Report, it immediately prompted you to install its ClockSync adware software. None of the subtle "Click here" or any of the other fake system update stuff you've seen in other ads mocked on this site. No, this is straightforward hijacking of your Web browsing experience.

Damnation and ruination upon you, Whenu.com. I curse your very existence, and hope the FTC and your local state attorney general act upon your complaints soon.

Update: I corrected the spelling of whenu.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Spyware

2004-05-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently covered the scourge of spyware. As per the Post-Dispatch's usual, it's a for-dummies version of what you should already now.

Remember this simple tip: never, ever download the product offered in a pop-up ad. Think it looks safe? Safe stuff doesn't get advertised for download. Never in a pop-up ad.

Step 1: Run Away

2004-05-04T18:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a bit whose ultimate purpose is only hinted at by the titlebar:

Title: 1: Take the TRUE compatibility test!

Ladies, this looks like the color storyboard from a cheap thriller, wherein the innocent, naive woman first meets the bad guy and thinks he seems nice. Run away, now. Also, buy a gun and carry it on your person, not in your purse.

Spyware Simulation of the Day

2004-05-04T18:49:00.000-07:00

This is getting to be a daily event, isn't it? Another day, another spyware company tries to trick novice users into downloading their particular spyware as a system update or whatnot. Today, we have a company with an ad designed like a console window (also known as the command prompt):

I mean, come on. People stupid enough to fall for this don't know what the command prompt is and don't get the metaphor.

Kudos, though, to the technological experise these guys demonstrate. The file list is animated, although you cannot see it in the screenshot, with a rotating list of spyware and virus threats that may be installed. Undoubtedly, this company didn't include any of its filenames because the poor stupid user hasn't installed them yet.

Blue Screen of Dumb

2004-05-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

Today's fake System Upgrade brought to you by an unknown assailant:

System downgrade is more like it. What kind of idiot makes an ad for his or her software and models it after the Blue Screen of Death?

Someone without any graphics tool outside of Microsoft Paint, I reckon.

Compelling Argument

2004-05-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

ZEDO offers this compelling argument:

Why, I would be a fool not to click an ad whose image was broken! Nothing says quality like an annoying AND broken pop-under ad!

A New, More Better Downloadable Spyware Scanner

2004-04-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

This week, a new pop-under ad cropped up, or under, WashingtonPost.com and the Drudge Report:

You know, there's a certain logical fallacy in these pitches. They have detected spyware by some sort of remote scan, and yet they want you to download something to perform the scan which they say they've already done. Doesn't seem right, does it? Of course it's not right, but if you're logical, you're not the target audience anyway.

The target audience, apparently, are those who trust unknown Internet sites and who are swayed by bright yellow backgrounds, the word WARNING in red, and exclamation points!

An Article About Spyware

2004-04-21T16:51:00.000-07:00

You've heard me say it before, but take John Borland's word for it since he installed some of the spyware blocking software that's really spyware.

(Link seen on TechDirt.)

Riddle

2004-04-21T16:50:00.000-07:00

I love a good riddle. I got this pop-under the other day:

Man, I don't know the answer, and I certainly didn't click through to find out. If a sphynx pops up and asks me this while I'm on the road, though, I am going to answer a man because it worked the last time.

Tickle Gets More Insidious

2004-04-21T16:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's bad enough that Tickle's really keeping the pop-under ad market afloat, but now they've edged ever more into the annoying with one of their new ads, which throws up another pop-under ad when you close it. Sure, hit the site you like, change focus over to the Tickle ad, and close it, and here comes a second chance:

Not ready to join? Why not just click through anyway, sucker?

Man oh man, I swear, the next step is to force a browser window into Kiosk mode. I'd like to Tickle the marketing professional who came up with this line of advertising genius with a cheese grater.

Although the model in this ad is better than Ana in the x10 ad below, so perhaps I should stop my whining.

What's With The Clothes?

2004-04-21T16:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a new x10 ad that's got a woman in it, but what's with all the clothes:

Part of the fun of classic x10 ads is the scantily clad or undressing burglars you could capture on video. This woman's not even showing ankle for crying out loud.

On the other hand, this particular model looks a lot like Ana Gasteyer. I'm glad she's clad.

Zen Advertising

2004-04-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks to MSN.com (and Hotmail), I got to contemplate Nirvana, true Nirvana and not the faux philosophizing caused by the tenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain air-cooling his supercharged lyrical genius.

Anyway, here's the ad:

Man, how insignificant I feel when faced with the truth in the universe, or at least the advertising.

What's the 404?

2004-03-27T08:43:00.000-08:00

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

2004-03-27T08:39:00.000-08:00

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

2004-03-24T17:12:00.000-08:00

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?

2004-03-24T16:26:00.000-08:00

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

2004-03-23T14:36:00.000-08:00

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!

2004-03-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

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

2004-03-22T17:12:00.000-08:00

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:

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

2004-03-22T16:54:00.000-08:00

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

2004-03-22T16:33:00.000-08:00

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.

Is This a Poll?

2004-03-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting bit I saw on Wednesday:

Is that a poll? An offer for free Spam? What?

I didn't follow up on it, of course, because:

The purpose of this Web log is to mock the ads, not the products (although I sometimes do that, too, for no extra charge).
I don't care; I don't use Outlook. I use an obscure e-mail client, an old client that translates all e-mail into Morse code. JavaScripting? Any scripting? Integration with the operation system? Good golly, no! That's insecure computing that would leave me vulnerable to whatever SpamFree's selling.

Warning, Impotent Message

2004-03-20T18:35:00.000-08:00

I've watched this particular message evolve. As I saw it on March 8, it said:

The first version said, "The publisher of this Web site has detected you have tracking software installed on your machine." Obviously, this must have run into some resistance from reputable Web sites which serve pop-under ads (WashingtonPost.com, et cetera) who were getting fingered for "scanning" readers' computers. The ad copy has changed and has moved from an Emily Dickinson capitalization model to that embraced by the rest of with high-faluting English degrees. Perhaps the next version of the ad will feature proper comma use, too.

The "serious violation of privacy" in the "program on your machine that monitors and transmits all of your online activities" refers, undoubtedly, to the very Web browser through which the user views the ad. Since most people don't know the intracicies of their computers' functionality (and by intracacies, I mean "basics), whomever runs this ad hopes to sell a script that empties the personal history on a routing basis. That is, that changes a user preference. Sweet. I hope it's a subscription and not an outright purchase.

Friends, Romans, and countrymen, and even you Franks, don't use "security" software downloaded from a pop-under ad. Never. Ever.

Thank you, that is all.

How's the Weather Up There?

2004-03-20T18:22:00.000-08:00

A number of companies will install adware software for you and in exchange for whatever they do to your PC, will provide you with a minimum of weather information, such as the temperature, on your taskbar. That's helpful if:

You are too stupid to hang a thermometer outside your window.
You cannot be bothered to open a Web browser and go to Weather.com.
You don't have enough pop-ups in your life.

Here are two:

Weatherscope:

Your computer utilites may not report the weather, but download our software and we'll be sure that your computer utilities now report your every coming and going on the Internet to us and report who's buying ad space from us, oh, yeah, and we'll show you the temperature, too.
Weatherbug:

A slightly less classy pop-under ad. Not only does it not identify the real reason the company wants you to install its software, but it couches it in terms of a taskbar update. As computer security experts want users to download updates immediately for their own safety, Weatherbug hopes to cash in on the gullible who will install their legitrojan.

Surely Weatherbug would insist that users know the difference. Some do. Some might even think it's a clever turn on the whole operating system update/upgrade. But both of those users work for Weatherbug's marketing department. This type of po-under ad is the equivalent of Time-Warner magazines shipping out Fortune subscription junk mail designed like due invoices. Sure, attentive users will recognize the difference and might subscribe, but the ads take advantage of confused elderly people who think it is a bill and just write a check. Or a dozen. For Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, Time, and all the rest of them, thus ensuring that the bulk of their estates will be perpetual subscriptions (and "Early Renewal Savings Vouchers").

A Classic Returns

2004-03-20T17:56:00.000-08:00

While cruising around the Web on Thursday, I saw an old friend return. I had heard that x10 was having a little trouble with its business and hadn't seen one of its famous pop-under ads. It would have been a shame to start this site without a sample from its stable; after all, x10 was the market for these ads for a long time. However, fortunately, I caught this bad Oscar to share:

The tagline is "See What You've Been Missing." You know what I missed, honestly? The stock photo of a semi- to demi-hot chick in a seductive pose with copy that illustrated security possibilities while paying homage to the real reason people would buy this camera--voyeurism. You can see your home, your kitchen, THE BEDROOM!!!1!!

Second wave of these ads was a little wry, indicating that the company never meant for you to use them that way! (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, buy-some-more!).

Welcome

2004-03-20T17:42:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Pop-Up Mocker, the blog that truly appreciates the sublime artform of the Pop-Up or Pop-Under Ad.

As most of you have already implemented pop-up blocking software, you're missing most of these beauties. Don't worry, I stride boldly into the world of unscrupulous advertising to ensure you'll see the biggest reputable phishing expeditions aimed at gullible Web users and we can all point and laugh together.

Enjoy!