nVerse

Those Teeth Whitening Ads

…are really gross.  And they are everywhere.  Now, I understand why there are so many…e.g. they are ads for high priced “continuity” products of which people buy multiple times, hence the ad spend is high and justified. But, really…i am ok with the before|after diet ads and even the good old fashioned what’s your IQ score? blinky fluorescent banner ads.   But these teeth whitening ads are, uh, eh….gnarly.

AND they are everywhere!

Why can’t they take a cue from AmericanApparel and use “good looking” Porn stars in their banner ads?  that would be soooo much better.  See, the American Apparel ads catch your eye in a good way, at least if you are a heathen.  But those tooth whitening ads catch your eye in a Oh-GAWD-I-wish-I-didn’t-look sort of way - which is bad.  And makes me not even notice what sorta products they are shucking.  because it is just so nasty!

Online Ads and Internet Security

…The intersection of two of my favorite categories in the techie-sphere.

Just because a website is reputable doesn’t mean that the ad networks it uses is.

So you might have a favorite blog or site that you go to everyday.  And it is probably a very good, reputable site - which is why you go to it.  And one day, you see an ad that catches your eye so you click on it.  And then next thing you know…BOOM - you get hit by a virus and it’s days of internet and PC security scans and suffering.

I recently got hit by what my chums over at Symantec call a “drive by” virus.  All it takes is going to a site and then wham-o! your browser crashes and you get some nasty rootkit virus that tries to send hundreds of email copies of itself to your contacts in your address book and it hijacks your blog and other apps.  Scary, huh?  yea. very.

In case you are a total neewbie, you will know that clicking on an ad for the most part is safe and useful - it takes you to where you want to go - maybe to an interesting travel site promoting a deal, or perhaps an e-commerce site selling something you want.  But what if it takes you somewhere you don’t want to go?  like this ad does:

Looks innocent enough…I’m happy with my German sinks from Duravit and am in the market for a new kitchen sink.

and hey!

is that a lady in a skimpy outfit hanging out by a German Sink?  <click>

And then I would have been redirected to a site that woulda given me another DriveBy virus.  How do I know?  I use both McAfee SiteAdvisor and Symantec’s equivalent on my Browser.  It does a decent job of screening me from going to nasty known sites.  Here’s the screenshot you get:

That’s right, it says, “Why were you redirected to this page? When we tested, this site attempted to make unauthorized changes to our test PC by exploiting a browser security vulnerability. This is a serious security threat which could lead to an infection of your PC.”

So - here’s a couple of things to consider:

1) always update your browser with the latest and greatest patches - especially when they contain vulnerability fixes

2) use SiteAdvisor or some euqivalent plugin

3) only click on ads from networks that you know do a good job of Quality testing of their ads - e.g. Google or Microsoft or some other ad network that you have heard of…if you hover your mouse over the ad, on the lower left-hand corner of your browser you should see the redirect link - if it’s a microsoft served ad it will say something like “r.msn.com” if it’s a google ad, it should say something like “googleads.g.doubleclick.net”

be safe out there.