samjam's Journal: Dirty Advertising Tricks at Dilbert.com

If its worth submitting to slashdot its worth putting in my journal to balance the risk of rejection against the sad loss of the story that was obviously so well worthwhile writing

Do web content owners know what advertisers are doing with their good name? Does Scott adams know that his publishers advertisers are doing their best to dupe his loyal fans out of as much of GPB 20.00 a time? Tonight I felt it was time for a little dilbert.com and the first thing to appear is a popup ad for a gaming site and a highly doubtful activex security warning that reads:

Do you want to install and run "YOU MUST READ, UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT THE FOLLOWING TERMS BEFORE USING THIS SERVICE, YOU CONFIRM THAT (1) You are 18 years of age or older (2) You are either the subscriber of the telephone line to which this computers modem is connected, or you have the Line Subscribers permission to use the Service, YOU UNDERSTAND THAT (3) This computers modem will be connected to a premium rate telephone number charged at GBP 1.50, and that the Line Subscriber will be charged for the duration of this call at the rate of GBP 1.50 (4) By using the service, you may be exposed to material which is offensive, indecent or objectionable(5) Once connected to the service, the telephone call will not terminate unless (a) you terminate the connection by selecting the modem symbol located at the lower right of the Windows taksbar and click DISCONNECT (b) you stay connected for longer than 13.33 minutes (c) you click the CLOSE button on the dialler dialoge box. Access via 09065170090-2 calls charged at GBP 1.50 per minute. World Content Ltd, Mitchel House, The Valley, Anguila" signed on an unknown date/time and distributed by:

Click Yes To Enter Ltd

Publisher authenticity verified by Thawte Code Signing CA

Caution Click Yes To Enter Ltd asserts that this content is safe. You should only install/view this content if you trust Click Yes To Enter Ltd to make that assertion

Well! The no doubt legally mandated warning is much longer than the one Microsoft provides. Microsoft seem to think that "Click Yes To Enter Ltd" has asserted the content to be safe, but "Click Yes To Enter Ltd" have asserted that it may be offensive, indecent, objectionable and cost GBP 1.50 per minute!

But wait... surely this so called agreement is actually the name of a program I am being asked to install-and-run, surely installing and running it does not bind me to the agreement whose text is also the name of the program?

Of course, I cancel the dialog and am greeted with this message:

To play the games we offer to you PLEASE press YES in the certificate window you will see. Then you will be able to play all the games we offer to you!

No legal words this time, just pleading to let gamesplayground.com offer for me to play games. (Or should that be pay games?)

And all this because I wanted to look at Dilbert!

And how much of the instructions will

• Be available to re-read after I close the dialog
• Actually work if WinXP hides my modem connection dialog

Does Scott adams know that his publishers advertisers are doing their best to dupe his loyal fans out of as much of GPB 20.00 a time? Lets hope not!

You can try the experience here but PLEASE don't accept to run the control and IE users, make sure you aren't set to run controls without prompting or heaven help you.

The link is: http://gaming.gamesplayground.co m/gaming.php?ac=060323&id=060323&iso=uk&route=3 05&serv=gaming&file=gaming and I've not made it a live link for obvious reasons, you are going to have to be clever enough to remove the "breakage" in the url to get it to work