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.
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  • identicon
    John, 7 May 2002 @ 6:45am

    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.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    thecaptain, 7 May 2002 @ 6:55am

    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.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Enraged Jim, 7 May 2002 @ 10:10am

    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?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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