Snopes Pushing Zango Adware 256
DaMan writes "Here's something that isn't an urban legend — Snopes, the popular urban legends reference site, has been pushing adware, for at least 6 months, to users via ads displayed on its Web site. No one seems to have called them on it until recently."
Obnoxious Advertising (Score:5, Informative)
Misleading Summary (Score:5, Informative)
"there practically every time" - not for me (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I did. And I didn't get any popups. I'm on refresh #30 or so.
No, I don't run adblock.
No, firefox isn't telling me it blocked a popup either.
I also tried with IE6. Still nothing.
Is the author quite sure they're not just targeting -him-? Be it my some manner of IP -> location lookup, or via an old cookie he's got laying around, or whatever?
Either that, or Snopes already changed things. Woo conspiracy theorists rejoice.
So Block Fastclick (Score:2, Informative)
Re:News? (Score:3, Informative)
They also disable text selection (Score:5, Informative)
No urban legend, that's confirmed. (Score:5, Informative)
Administrative Contact , Technical Contact
Mikkelson, David
snopes@best.com
P.O. Box 684
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
US
Phone: (702) 988-4047
Fax: (818) 261-3054
The phone number appears to ring to offices at "best.com", who says their offices are presently closed and offer to take a message. Keying "best.com" into your browser will redirect to Verio [verio.com]. And round and round we go. I think I'll send a fax to the number listed in WHOIS.
Re:I hear... (Score:3, Informative)
The joke is about Symantec and all of the other anti-virus/mal-ware companies. The urban legend is that they are in cahoots with the virus writers in order to keep their anti-virus business in business.
I think it is at least as true as the FBI looking the other way when their informants commit 'petty' crimes because they think that getting the big fish is worth it.
Re:The downside of adblockplus. (Score:5, Informative)
And no, I don't know the URL any more.
Re:Adblock Plus (Score:4, Informative)
NoScript requires you to explicitly enable sites to run scripts, either per session or permanently. This turns people off, but security is never easy and it's just two clicks.
Re:"there practically every time" - not for me (Score:5, Informative)
I can confirm that they do use popups as I got one from them just yesterday. Actually what I got was a pop-under, masquerading as a Windows dialog box, which is even worse. Snopes' advertising has become quite obnoxious, but their content is still good so I grudgingly put up with it. Incidentally, if you hate popunders as much as I do, please vote for https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=369306 [mozilla.org] to kill them forever. (Don't add comments to the bug though, that's bad bugzilla etiquette)
Re:adblock (Score:2, Informative)
Frequently Asked Questions [snopes.com]
Re:Does it run on Linux? (Score:1, Informative)
All pardons to Cool Hand Luke:
"What we have here is a failure to communicate."
Re:It's not a Snopes Problem. (Score:2, Informative)