The Pop Up Ad From Hell
from the oh-my dept
If you thought regular pop up ads were bad, you haven’t seen (or been infected) with anything yet. Salon has an article about a malicious pop up ad campaign that secretly installed spyware on visitors’ computers. The ad redirected people to another site that exploited a security hole, automatically downloading software. Some of that software then disabled or modified virus software and firewall software. No one is exactly sure what else the software does, but it doesn’t look good.
Comments on “The Pop Up Ad From Hell”
Legally what can be done?
If this was a private individual that had managed to get this malicious code on a company’s computers that company would run screaming all the way to the courts about how it lost millions of dollars in revenue. As a consequence the individual would be tried, convicted, and sentenced to a good period of time in jail along with being ordered to pay restitution to the company that was affected. So the question is, what will happen to IntelliTech? Will someone from the company go to jail over this? They should.
WTF????
What is WITH these people that ANYONE could EVER consider this an OK thing to do? This is by a LONG shot the WORST cr*p I’ve ever seen by a marketting company. What do they TEACH these people wherever they are hatched?
If there are any marketters out there reading this, I want them to respond here, on this site and defend their profession…because while marketting may have fulfilled a useful function 50 years ago (ie: raised awareness of new products for the consumer), it now seems to only exist for the purpose of screwing over the consumer (which they endeavour to treat like sheep to fleece) and lining their own pockets at ANY cost by misdirection and outright deception.
Re: WTF????
Try reading the Confessions of a telemarketer at Slate. The strongest reality distortion field this side of Steve Jobs…
A challenge to all marketers
Look, weasels, when are you going to get it through your heads that you can’t build a business on annoying the f–k out of people?