Worst Ads Ever! (SkepticOverlord's Ad Hitlist)

The pitiful animals need help, they should stay...

THE WORST EVER is those TEETH! I can't even bare to look at the right side of the screen at some strangers motley yellow teeth that have turned white.

Gawd awful

I have been staying logged in. Yet everytime I come to the site I get a popup from casalmedia. Everytime! This is the only site on which this occurs. If it isn't ATS doing this, then it is someone else trying to discredit ATS by having this pop up only when I go to ATS.

Almost ready to stop coming here because of it.

Originally posted by Ian McLean
reply to post by theyreadmymind

 

I totally agree, but as I mentioned the problem is in no way "ATS only", so it's a little unreasonable to expect them to spearhead a solution. And the dangerous elements are in ad code that delivered by providers external to ATS, which they don't have (much) a priori control over.

Here's the standard advice for disabling animated elements on web pages, for photosensitive and epileptic-prone people:
blogoscoped.com...

It disables GIF and Flash animation on the Firefox browser.

If they don't have control over it, then that falls under my 'technical reasons' argument. If that is the case, then this whole thread is kind of pointless, isn't it? Thanks for posting those disabling instructions though. Epileptics take note.

ATS has been popping up this add quite a bit on my machines.
Easy Google Profits

The problem with this add is that it’s a scam, made to look like a newspaper article. There is no product, and they bill you a bunch of money while never providing anything for it. They are under investigation in several states for pulling this crap.

Better Business Bureau
On April 20, 2009 the Utah Division of Consumer Protection issued a Final Order by Default against Google Money Tree LLC and Google Treasure Chest LLC ("Respondents"). The Respondents are ordered to cease and desist from: a) failing to ship goods or furnish services within the time advertised or otherwise represented after receiving payment; b) charging consumers for consumer transactions that have not been previously agreed to by consumers; c) indicating that a specific price advantage exists if it does not; d) failing to make refunds to consumers within 30 days of receiving valid requests for refunds; e) sending goods or providing services to consumers pursuant to a negative option plan; and f) any act in violation of the Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act. The Respondents were assessed and ordered to pay an administrative fine in the amount of $12,500.

On April 24, 2009 the Texas Attorney General's Office announced charges for operating a fraudulent work-at-home scheme against Infusion Media Inc, GoogleTreasureChest.com, InternetIncomeInitiative.com, and Jonathan D. Eborn ("Defendants"), whose "GoogleMoneyTree.com" promised six-figure earnings for conducting specialized Google and Yahoo Internet searches. According to the state's enforcement action, GoogleMoneyTree failed to clearly inform purchasers that they had been enrolled in monthly memberships and had only seven days to cancel their trial membership. Purchasers who failed to cancel within seven days were automatically charged $82 on their credit card statements each month. In addition to the unexpected credit card charges, customer complaints obtained by state investigators indicate that GoogleMoneyTree failed to actually send the "free kit" and refused to honor customer refunds. The state is seeking an injunction, civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, as well as restitution for purchasers.

You should really remove it before you have a member get scammed by these criminals.

reply to post by defcon5


Thats the ad that is supplied by Casalmedia.

What I want to know is why I am getting a popup even when I stay signed in? According to prior posts by the Overlord this isn't suppose to be happening.

Internet advertising sucks. At least sell stuff relevant to the site instead of ripoff scams.I thought the culture was different here, but i guess eventually everyone get turned to the dark side by their greed.

The Maidenform one (takes you here: www.maidenform.com...) is starting to get on my nerves.

Just a tad.

Another "hey if I was at Starbucks and someone checked out my screen that could be weird" deal.

For the second time since the introduction of the Media Portal I had to watch an advertising video before I could see the video that I wanted to see, one uploaded by myself.



I am not someone that is easily affected by violent images, but an advert of a fight may not be well accepted by some of our members, after all, if there is an automatic language censor and we are asked not to post violent images or videos, I think we should not accept that from sponsors, specially in a place where I was not expecting an advert to appear (I thought this "glitch" had been corrected long ago).

This is just one more thing that makes me think that the Media Portal needs to be much changed from what it is now, as it is, I only use it because I am forced to do it, but whenever I need to post a photo with the EXIF data or a video that I do not want to be highly compressed and resized I have to look to other, less intrusive, options.

PS: as anyone can see, I hate the Media Portal.
Having to watch ads before the videos does not help.

PPS: sorry if this was addressed before, searching for "ads" does not help, and I could not find a specific Media Portal thread.

Edited to add that it happens with all videos. Is this on purpose?

[edit on 11/6/2009 by ArMaP]

www.cursormania.com this is a pop-up that popsup before you are logged in.

if you visit that site and download what it asks you get filled to the brim with spyware and malware, wich will destroy your computer.

Take a lookat the user reviews on norton:safeweb.norton.com...

not very good at all for such a big website.

New ad for secure-my-pc2.com (first seen 6/22/09) takes users away from ATS automatically and pops up fake alert about "Your PC may not be safe" or somesuch.

Please kill.

reply to post by JoshNorton


We just ran a header trace and believe we have discovered the culprit ad...

It should be taken care of shortly.

Springer...

reply to post by Springer


Thanks very much, on top of things a usual Thanks again

There's increasing evidence that many other sites are seeing this... our members just tend to be more vocal and -uh- "paranoid" about such things.

Fortunately, the ad is not malicious on its own, and installs nothing on your computer unless you click something. If you close the window, and take no action, you're safe.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Hey Bill

I appreciate that response but I would hazard a guess that many here at ATS will not read yours and the others response here and they are not tech savvy enough to know it's not a real warning but an ad and chances are they will click something.

Just a thought.

Simple way to not deal with the annoying ads here on ATS, use Firefox and Ad Block Plus. I know ATS gets it's money mostly from advertising but those ads drove me nuts and I had to something about it.

Oftentimes, I read ATS while listening to a Big Band Stream, so my speakers are in use. The ad that says 'YOU HAVE WON A $1,000 WAL-MART GIFT CARD' (caps are intentional, as the ad is a loud feed) is extremely annoying. Further, if you are so foolish as to post or star someone, you get to hear it again!

Thanks

[edit on 23-6-2009 by Viking04]

I just hate how there is magically a pop-up every time I click on the login bar to put in my password...

I am a ATS member who visits 2 times a day at least. The ads on ATS are within my level of tolerance, and I click on them often, to see what they have to offer.

Yet, I bring a question to the administration. Would it be possible for each user to choose which ads they would like to see?

As an example, I am into computers, internet, and camping. Would it be possible if I could fill out a questionnaire and receive the ads that interest me the most ? I as well as you know this is called acute target audience targeting.
And I am asking for that. Sure the norms in advertising have certain forms and ways of doing things and cookie cutter like, but I am asking you to at least look into it. I am always looking for computer and camping stuff.

My vote? The personalvirus software.
I have spent about 3 hours now trying to get
it off my computer. I could not surf this site at all!
(among other problems)
Not a happy camper. Then I had to get logged in again
and that is sometimes quite fun also....My 2.
(good thing I'm persistent)!

The ads I was forced to see before I could see ATS Media videos have disappeared once more, so, if possible, I would like an official statement from the management side of ATS.

Are we supposed to have to watch adverts before seeing ATS Media videos?

If not, was it a glitch that forced me to watch to the adverts? If it was a glitch, why did it happened twice?

If we are not supposed to have to watch to the adverts, is there a possibility that we will have to in the future?

Because of this advert problem I stopped using the ATS Media Portal to post videos and I have not seen two videos posted by other people because I was forced to watch some advert before the video, and I refuse to do it (also, they were not that important, there are other ways of seeing ATS Media videos).

Originally posted by ArMaP
Are we supposed to have to watch adverts before seeing ATS Media videos?

Yes... you will see ads with some of our videos.

...because I was forced to watch some advert before the video, and I refuse to do it

Why?

Bandwidth on a high-performance globally distributed content delivery network is expensive. Also, we split the ad revenue with the pro video providers/creators. In the case of John Barbour and his Garrison Tapes production, this is the first time he's seeing income from his significant efforts in a long, long time... and we're lining up more "pro" content providers for the media portal who will also receive a split of the ad revenue.

Creating stuff can be expensive and time consuming, why shouldn't we help devise a way where our partner contributors can receive income?

Distributing high-bandwidth video IS expensive, why shouldn't we have a method (pre-roll video ads) that pays to get it done?