The ads on CTN are getting out of control

[gneebore]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

That's odd. I use gmail as a spam filter. I have gmail check my regular email and then I download pop from gmail. I get no spam at all. If I wasn't using gmail to filter it, I'd get close to 300 spam per day.

I also use chrome, but I use adblocker, so I don't really see many ads on this site. I turned off adblocker, as I was reading this thread, and I saw some ads for things I've searched for in the past. Things that no other normal person would be searching for--so they definitely use your history.

BTW - this free site, where we get and give tons of valuable information, runs on the meager contributions and on ads. Keep that in mind.

Like I said I use gmail because my sister uses it and sends me emails there. The weird part of the spams since I have not used gmail for sister emails or anything other than setting up chrome way back when is a lot of the spams have my name and even my nickname. Something I may have used for a short while when using chrome and registering on games websites, tech websites like EBMKY.com, but not when I activated gmail or chrome. About the best part of using yahoo, gmail, outlook, etc is they do not download to your pc like pop does. I do know to never ever open attachments is spam. But back when I was using pop before my current ISP switched to web based email like gmail and outlook the spam emails did download attachments to the pop software spam folder. I did get a few alerts from Norton back then that a suspicious attachment was blocked from downloading when just logging on to the pop server.

I use adblocker to avoid the video ads a lot of the advertisers put in their banner ads now. For a while I was using a smart phone that had data limits. Those video ads are usually 2 to 4 megs of data. Yes early days and low limits of data before surcharges while using the smart phone(actually a blackberry that long ago) taught me to use the adblocker. Even if you can stop the ad from playing the ad still buffers and you are downloading data.

[gneebore]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

The amount of spam you get on a free email account depends on where and how often you use that email address for online order and registrations. Many sites sell mailing lists. The more sites that have your email on their mailing list, the more spam you are going to get. If you get offers that have links for "If you no longer to see" click here, do not do so. It just means that you at least looked at the email which makes it of greater value to sell.

Yes I know that. Like I said the only time I use gmail is with one sister who loves it and when i registered chrome. I have never used gmail to sign up with on onto any site. The only entity that could have sold my gmail address is google. And I learned way back when the internet for most people was Cserve or AOL. Never ever click on a "unsubscribe" link in spam. Like you said it confirms a good and valid email address. I do have one relative that tends to resend emails with BCC and at times over twenty different recipient addresses. One of the nasty tricks there is a company sets up a fake e-mail sends out a "look what the (name your goofy fake news report) people are doing now. Then they have a "forward to all your friends. Then they have a fake BCC address the receives all those new valid e-mail addresses. I use yahoo as a spam trap and only use my ISP email the ISP and some commercial accounts I have online payments set up with.

[Hansoon]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

Firefox with uBlock:

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/ublock-origin

Never have ANY ads whatsoever.

Hans

[slimslob]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

Like I said I use gmail because my sister uses it and sends me emails there. The weird part of the spams since I have not used gmail for sister emails or anything other than setting up chrome way back when is a lot of the spams have my name and even my nickname. Something I may have used for a short while when using chrome and registering on games websites, tech websites like EBMKY.com, but not when I activated gmail or chrome. About the best part of using yahoo, gmail, outlook, etc is they do not download to your pc like pop does. I do know to never ever open attachments is spam. But back when I was using pop before my current ISP switched to web based email like gmail and outlook the spam emails did download attachments to the pop software spam folder. I did get a few alerts from Norton back then that a suspicious attachment was blocked from downloading when just logging on to the pop server.

I use adblocker to avoid the video ads a lot of the advertisers put in their banner ads now. For a while I was using a smart phone that had data limits. Those video ads are usually 2 to 4 megs of data. Yes early days and low limits of data before surcharges while using the smart phone(actually a blackberry that long ago) taught me to use the adblocker. Even if you can stop the ad from playing the ad still buffers and you are downloading data.

One thing to think about concerning pop-up and banner ads. Google is the primary participant in AdChoices, the largest ad content provider.

[NeoMatrix]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

Adverts hackings is done via DNS cache spoofing forcing redirection of your internet connection through a false ISP.

To DNS cache spoof you need your primary ISP to allow HTML redirection to an advert server when ever you get a "404 page error."

Big ISP/Telco providers allow user HTML 404 errors to redirect to Google, Amazon an other Advert companies. There in lies the start of the problem. Google then allows/passes HTML page onto 3rd party advert companies to write scripts to advertise on google services. The 3rd party scripts are unsolicited. These 3rd party companies can do what ever adverts they like under the guise of google or amazon redirected legitimate servers. You can see all redirects in the address bar of your browser. To force constant 404 errors the redirected/spoofed HTML page will remove 1 or 2 charactures from the page advert URL's or image names displayed on the page; thus forcing the next 404 error redirect from your own ISP, and the spoofed DNS circle continues.

Override the automatic DHCP and set the manual DNS in your firewall/modem to your own known fixed ISP. This will not stop direct DNS hacks but will limit redirection configuration changes.

[gneebore]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

One thing to think about concerning pop-up and banner ads. Google is the primary participant in AdChoices, the largest ad content provider.

Which is why I believe the use of my nickname and first name in the gmail spam came from. And of course way back then I did not know to block third party cookies either. It's been so long i don't recall if the very early chrome did allow blocking third party cookies either. I know you could clear cache and cookies on exit.

[theengel]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

Never ever click on a "unsubscribe" link in spam.

There's your problem. I use the unsubscribe button all the time. You may unwittingly alert a spammer to your presence, but gmail is good about rooting those out. I think if you tried to unsubscribe to a few of the spams you're getting, you'll see the spam disappear. If not, you can always create a new gmail account and start fresh.

Clarifying - I start getting emails when I sign up at a new site, but the unsubscribe button makes them go away. If it doesn't, I just report it as spam, and they're gone.

[Copier Addict]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

All I know is google makes a lot of its money selling peoples information to other companies. (I know they aren't the only one) So, I choose to use as few google products as I possibly can. Just my personal choice.

[TheBlueOrleans]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

I'm only seeing ads for some chip reset device European USB thing chipreset (dot) eu , I-drive backup registry, and one other thing I don't remember because it doesn't show up on the "reply to thread" page I'm typing on at present. Nothing inappropriate, thankfully, just worthless ads I'm never going to click on.

Lesson learned long ago when I first started using The Interwebs, never ever click on an ad. If I see something in an ad that interests me I'll search for it directly, rather than click on a banner ad. I may be their target demographic and I may not, but I'm never going to take the bait.

[theengel]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

There's a weird paranoia with older folks. I'm one of the few my age who really don't care if another company tries to sell something to me. I just don't get what the big deal is. I'm not careful at all with my email address, I click on ads whenever I see something interesting, and gmail still filters ALL of the spam that comes to me. I don't know where the fear comes from. A company that sells tools would have something to offer to me personally. Amazon knows I'm interested in tools. So when an amazon ad pops up, it's for a neat tool. Why would I care about that? Companies have been doing this for as longs as they've been advertising.

Most of the stuff you get for free in this world is only free because of advertising. Why would you try to 'outsmart' these marketing dogs?

Of course, you ought to realize that most of the larger companies (including Google) aren't really selling your personal information to anyone--not even your email address. What they sell is market trends. And this is good for the consumer as well as the sellers.

For example:

Amazon has a pretty good hold on the online retail market share. Some say they're stealing business from the small guy, but a lot of people don't realize that the small guy benefits--because he can sell his goods on Amazon... which is where people are most likely to look when they want to buy what he's selling. Now Amazon does this for a very small portion of the purchase. But they aren't looking for money--they're looking for market share. It allows them to sell more products, to more people, without the added expense of buying, storing, and shipping the product.

But that's not their biggest benefit to allowing their competitors to sell on their site. Their biggest benefit is......

MARKET RESEARCH

Because so many people buy so many different types of items on Amazon, they have an intimate understanding of buying habits. They don't actually sell this information, but they use it to sell more to the consumer. They actually use it to know what to offer the consumers and when.

Google isn't likely to sell your personal information. But they do sell ad space. And they know when and where to place their client's ads, by using an algorithm they developed by watching, recording, and analyzing search behavior.

Their only goal is to sell more for their clients... whose only goal is to give you a product in exchange for money. Why would this worry you?

[gneebore]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

There's a weird paranoia with older folks. I'm one of the few my age who really don't care if another company tries to sell something to me. I just don't get what the big deal is. I'm not careful at all with my email address, I click on ads whenever I see something interesting, and gmail still filters ALL of the spam that comes to me. I don't know where the fear comes from. A company that sells tools would have something to offer to me personally. Amazon knows I'm interested in tools. So when an amazon ad pops up, it's for a neat tool. Why would I care about that? Companies have been doing this for as longs as they've been advertising.

Most of the stuff you get for free in this world is only free because of advertising. Why would you try to 'outsmart' these marketing dogs?

Of course, you ought to realize that most of the larger companies (including Google) aren't really selling your personal information to anyone--not even your email address. What they sell is market trends. And this is good for the consumer as well as the sellers.

For example:

Amazon has a pretty good hold on the online retail market share. Some say they're stealing business from the small guy, but a lot of people don't realize that the small guy benefits--because he can sell his goods on Amazon... which is where people are most likely to look when they want to buy what he's selling. Now Amazon does this for a very small portion of the purchase. But they aren't looking for money--they're looking for market share. It allows them to sell more products, to more people, without the added expense of buying, storing, and shipping the product.

But that's not their biggest benefit to allowing their competitors to sell on their site. Their biggest benefit is......

MARKET RESEARCH

Because so many people buy so many different types of items on Amazon, they have an intimate understanding of buying habits. They don't actually sell this information, but they use it to sell more to the consumer. They actually use it to know what to offer the consumers and when.

Google isn't likely to sell your personal information. But they do sell ad space. And they know when and where to place their client's ads, by using an algorithm they developed by watching, recording, and analyzing search behavior.

Their only goal is to sell more for their clients... whose only goal is to give you a product in exchange for money. Why would this worry you?

First there are people that have to pay for their bandwidth or data so advertisers that use video banner ads are causing them to pay to see that advertising. So now that "free website" is causing the viewer a charge to see those ads. Next I do not mind ads. There are picture ads that show up here on this website. Occasionally when needed for tech support or parts I have clicked on those ads in the past. Now if the website is specifically set up as a sales site like say for Radio Shack of course I expect banner ads and or even video touting their latest specials. However I do not want to see video ads on sites like CTN. And if I remember correctly the original post was about pop-ups for inappropriate ads here on CTN. It eventually did get around to popup ads including video ads for soft core porno websites on workplace computers that were not being "searched" for by the person posting in the thread.

As for google and gmail. Yes they do filter the spam. But as I have said in the past when I used chrome there were websites I visited, games websites etc, where I used my nickname but had actually registered with that website before I used chrome so gmail was not the e-mail address used to log in there. No spam that could be accounted for from the games website at all in the registered email for that website for years before using chrome. So as a guess yes gmail or google did sell my gmail address and "name" to spammers. There it is in my "spam" folder courtesy of chrome/google. My anti-virus program now blocks trackers. Google analytics is a tracker monitoring this very website and is being blocked by the anti-virus software.

The Amazon reference is an entirely different kettle of fish. You go to Amazon looking for the best deal so when you search for whatever item you want to buy of course there are going to be results and those results include advertising by the seller for whatever you are looking for. I do not recall any video banners when I have searched for items on Amazon. But I really do not buy a lot from there. And yes I do occasionally receive e-mail from Amazon at the email I registered there with that will have "special deals on" something similar I may have recently viewed on their website. If it is from Amazon I do not consider that spam. If I start getting twenty or thirty e-mails from all sorts of different companies selling something similar then that I consider spam and it goes into the spam filter and not even looked at anyway.

[theengel]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

My comment was to all the other comments. All the weird rules like "never unsubscribe" or "never click on an ad". I didn't think we were talking about pop-ups. I didn't even know they existed anymore.

Gmail did not sell your email address. I can guarantee, they did not give your address away. If gmail isn't filtering something, all you have to do is report it as spam on gmail, and you'll stop getting them.

You're not blocking google analytics. They are tracking you do on this site. And it's helpful that they do. It helps you, it helps Copytechnet.

Who the heck pays for bandwidth, other than mobile users?

[gneebore]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

My comment was to all the other comments. All the weird rules like "never unsubscribe" or "never click on an ad". I didn't think we were talking about pop-ups. I didn't even know they existed anymore.

Gmail did not sell your email address. I can guarantee, they did not give your address away. If gmail isn't filtering something, all you have to do is report it as spam on gmail, and you'll stop getting them.

You're not blocking google analytics. They are tracking you do on this site. And it's helpful that they do. It helps you, it helps Copytechnet.

Who the heck pays for bandwidth, other than mobile users?

Pop ups still exist usually as ads for related content. Or redirects to banner ad website content.
Sorry but even though you think gmail did not sell my address spammers got it somehow. I did not say gmail was not filtering I did say I receive roughly 50 to 100 spams a day. Granted they are in the spam folder. Included in the spam folder are emails that include the use of my first and last name.

I open the spam folder only to be able to delete the spam and see what sort of idiocy spammers are sending out. And while doing so I can see the headers. Those occasionally include my name and nickname.

My anti-virus software does include a tracking blocker. And right there when I check to see who is tracking there is google analytics and statcounter. Ah you can also use the built in firewall included in most anti-virus programs to block trackers also

I know quite a few people that pay for bandwidth. Usually they live in rural areas outside of metro areas or outside of cable service areas. Like my sister who does live in a rural area. She has two choices for high speed internet. Also had lots of customers in the same situation where they were limited to using the internet for email only because of where they were. One method is satellite and the other is the single dsl provider in the county. The dsl company has two type of service. A low cost limited use dsl, with a 15 gigs data per month with overage charges for any data use above 15 gig. Or an unlimited data plan for two times the cost of the limited at 65.00 month. You could use a smart phone but in that particular area cell coverage is very limited and spotty.

[Tricky]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

Sorry but even though you think gmail did not sell my address spammers got it somehow. I did not say gmail was not filtering I did say I receive roughly 50 to 100 spams a day. Granted they are in the spam folder. Included in the spam folder are emails that include the use of my first and last name.

I open the spam folder only to be able to delete the spam and see what sort of idiocy spammers are sending out. And while doing so I can see the headers. Those occasionally include my name and nickname.

I have had a gmail account for a few years and the spam folder is empty and always has been.

I learnt the hard way with hotmail putting my address on websites etc and now it just fills up with spam.

The spammers got your address as you have entered your full name somewhere, then its just a case of trying mike.smith@aol.com mike.smith1@aol.com etc

[Tricky]

Re: The ads on CTN are getting out of control

I choose to use as few google products as I possibly can. Just my personal choice.

Do you have an Android phone?