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General discussion

Bad Advertising ...

Aug 9, 2004 12:01PM PDT

I'm not sure this is the right forum but the others did not seem applicable. So, here goes ......

Why does cnet allow advertising that is a known threat to it's users? The current example is Vonage that attempts to download "AvenueA, Inc" with each page that ad is on.

This is blocked and reported by Spybot- S&D but it is very annoying. Plus, I'm sure this spy is getting on many users computer without their knowledge.

Discussion is locked

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Re: Bad Advertising ...
Aug 11, 2004 2:00PM PDT

well cnet has to accept ads to keep running just use your tools ro remove

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Re: Bad Advertising ...
Aug 12, 2004 12:26AM PDT

I only see that if I use Internet Explorer. Take a guess what browser I rarely use?

Bob

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Re: Bad Advertising ... Covered in a CNET forum...
Aug 13, 2004 6:45AM PDT

The answer seems to be to get the latest Spybot S&D version 1.3 which has the facility to "block bad pages silently".

To the best of my knowledge, this blocks the bad bit but lets the advertising through, in the same way that blocking the page every time on request by version 1.2 still lets the advertising through.

I have this and have activated the feature and it works. My reqret here is that I cannot find the thread via search, but perhaps someone else can enlighten you as to how, once you've got 1.3, you can activate this feature cos I've forgotten.

PS Don't know why CNET allow a so-called "known threat" (as Avenue-A is regarded by Spybot), which as you say could presumably be an actual threat to someone who has no Spybot of any version.

Regards
Mo

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Re Advertsing and IE6
Aug 13, 2004 8:32AM PDT

If you have downloaded Spybot S&D 1.3, the option to block bad pages silently is under "Immunise".

This might or might not work, or be relevant, to other browers - see Bob's post above.

(I must still leave the CNET philosophy re Avenue-A Inc for others to comment upon.)

Regards
Mo

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Re: Re Advertsing and IE6
Aug 15, 2004 12:32PM PDT

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Thanks Mo ... I do have Spybot 1.3 and can use that feature. But, I was wondering why cnet would allow such bad practices from it's advertisers.

Yes, I know they need advertisers to support the forum ... that's a given. Not all of the advertisers use such spyware in their advertising. Believe me, I would never buy or use services from these advertisers who use spyware.

And, since cnet allows this, I now wonder just how safe cnet is!

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Just my guess, ---the advertiser drops a
Aug 16, 2004 4:29AM PDT

cookie in your system to identify that you as a unique user have been served (viewed) by this particular ad. The purpose is to allow advertisers to count unique individual views of their ad, rather than counting ads that have viewed over and over again by the same person. This is just my shot in the wind.

My question is also for Spybot... while I use Spybot also, just because it is flagging a particular cookie from an advertiser, does it always mean it is harmful or considered spyware?

To me this sounds more like an issue with cookies than spyware, but what do I know, I'm not a security expert.

If you are wary of CNET's site, please do read through our Privacy policy for better understanding of what CNET Networks' practices in regards to cookies.

http://www.cnet.com/html/aboutcnet/editorial/privacy.html?tag=rv.ft.co.privacy

While you do have a valid concern, it is always best to read and understand the privacy policies we have in place on our site rather than jumping to conclusions or assumptions about it.

I hope the CNET Network Privacy policy statement provides you with some better explanation and insight on this topic.

Thank you.
-Lee Koo
CNET Community

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Re: Just my guess, ---the advertiser drops a
Aug 22, 2004 4:54AM PDT

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I read your privacy policy.

If these were truely benign cookies, I wouldn't be getting these alerts from Spybot. The fact is that many cookies are sent to and received by most visitors to CNET. But, only a few (the harmful ones from AvenueA, DoubleClick, etc) actually are invasive. You are allowing your advertisers to harmfully invade your users computers ... that is, those that do not know any better! Sad

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Re: Just my guess, ---the advertiser drops a
Aug 22, 2004 7:16AM PDT

well i get cookies and i use spybot but none from here hmmm very strange. i allso use spywareblaster, adaware se avg and hosts file maybe thats why i dont get those socalled bad cookies you think?

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I think the main points made earlier still stand...
Aug 22, 2004 11:24PM PDT

Dear Mark

The same points are being made - history repeating itself IMO - and I don't think Lee answered them. I acknowledge that Lee said that such questions would be better raised in the Virus & Security Alerts Forum - and that is fair comment.

The two fundamental points are (1) that visitors to CNET could be at risk, especially if they have insufficient protection, and (2) why CNET has not made it a term of their advertising clients that no adverts shall have any information-gathering facility other than totally harmless cookies. Don't ask me how they would police this, except that they ought to be able to do tests on standalone computers to see the effects of such advertising (identify spiders, whatever) - and perhaps they should do this before accepting adverts.

I personally don't think it is sufficient to refer visitors to CNET's privacy policy - that is a cop-out to me, because it is quite clearly not going to say that "we CNET put harmful cookies on your machine" - is it? It is generally accepted that the man and his dog put cookies on our machines - I think we ought to be able to rely on CNET vetting that no cookie from a CNET advertiser will be of the harmful type.

I guess I need to ask that question in the V & SA Forum for a definitive answer.

PS Personal to Mark - another 24 hrs?

Regards
Mo

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Re: I think the main points made earlier still stand...
Aug 22, 2004 11:40PM PDT

your right i dont think normally i use so musgh software i forget others might notHappy

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Re: Re Advertsing and IE6
Aug 16, 2004 7:23AM PDT

Hi CharleyO,

Just read your comments and that of Lee's. I sometimes get reports when I uses Spybot about cookies, which really is not that big of deal to me and I just let Spybot delete. Of course it is rare as I use Nortons Systems Works and maybe delete cookies 5-6 times daily.

If you are that concerned about security and ads, your may want to address the matter to the [url=
http://reviews.cnet.com/5204-6132-0.html?forumID=32&start=0]Virus & Security Alerts forum

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Re: Bad Advertising ...
Aug 26, 2004 10:55AM PDT

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After doing more research and paying attention to advertisements on other sites, I no longer think Vonage or a couple of others I mentioned above are at fault for trying to ... and installing ... spyware on some user computers in this forum. I say this because Vonage nor the other mentioned ads are creating Spybot alerts on others sites where I come across these ads.

This leads me to these 2 possible conclusions :

1 - Vonage and the other advertisers are not allowed to use the bad form of cookies in there ads on other sites. Three cheers for the other sites if this is true.
2 - AvenueA, DoubleClick, etc are actually being used by cnet to spy on it's users. This is said because I have now noticed that AvenueA alerts are popping up on pages that show no advertising other than the cnet/help.com header.

I visit about 5 other forums almost every day and never get these Spybot alerts at those sites. I can't begin to add up the number of other types of sites that I visit in a day. Rarely do I get alerts from Spybot about these invasive cookies at other visited sites. But, here at this site, they occur too frequently ... at least every other visited page on this forum.

SHAME on CNET for allowing these invasive cookies to be used ... or, for using the invasive cookies themselves ... whichever the case may be!

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Re: Bad Advertising ...
Aug 29, 2004 11:16AM PDT

If you really want to see some spy-rony.... visit the Hotmail/MSN pages. That great bastion of "secure computing" which owns them allows all the nasties on its pages, often in triplicate.

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Re: Bad Advertising ...
Aug 29, 2004 12:02PM PDT

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LOL ...nice name for it. Yeah, I stopped using MSN about 5 years ago because of such and I've never used Hotmail.

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