CNET: Web surfers brace for pop-under downloads. [via Slashdot: A New Low for Web Advertisers] In some cases, people are not even asked whether they want the software. It just installs on the hard drive–a particularly troublesome tactic that some have dubbed ‘drive-by download.’
That would be where your IE security settings are set to Low (run unknown ActiveX objects without prompting), which, quite frankly, is asking for it. (Note: this does not mean users deserve it. Auto-downloading and auto-installing spyware should be treated with no more respect than a virus or worm.)
More troubling to the rest of us non-IE users, however, is the ripple effect that these dirty advertising practices create. The nastier the web environment gets, the harder it is for legitimate web sites to survive, both technologically and socially. One Slashdot poster summarized the technological hurdles well:
With all this hostile code running around, legitimate site designers have to assume that many web features will be firewalled or disabled. So, if you’re responsible for any web sites:
- It has to work with JavaScript turned off.
- You have to test with a filtering proxy, like WebWasher. Your site has to work behind such a proxy. we’ll probably see more proxies and firewalls in corporate environments.
- It has to work with cookies turned off, or at least produce useful error messages. Endlessly recycling the user to the wrong page because a cookie wasn’t found is out.
- It has to work with IE in its most restrictive security mode. Among other things, this means don’t use Active-X controls. You can’t even assume the user runs Flash.
This isn’t too restrictive. Big players, like Amazon, Yahoo Store, and the major search sites, all work under these restrictions. If your site doesn’t, your site is broken.
Socially, of course, victims (end users) will want to assign blame, but will most likely assign it incorrectly. Google has been hit hard by this, since many spyware programs launch pop-under ads based on keyword searches. Smart tags didn’t help the situation either. (Microsoft pulled the feature from IE 6 at the last minute, but eZula TopText picked up where they left off.) The online experience just keeps getting worse and worse. Soon it will reach a tipping point, and people — and I mean millions of people here, the great unwashed masses who use AOL, search at MSN, and get their news from Yahoo — will simply give up and find better things to do with their time.
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