Saturday Deep Dive: Malicious Ads
Saturday, October 5, 2013 at 4:00AM Today's dive into the deeper archive of Webcomics.com takes us to Oct. 4, 2011, when I discussed how to handle a malicious ad when it starts appearing on your site.
Facebinks.com (a company that seems to be located in Bejing, according to this) is delivering a malicious, pop-over ad to Web sites, offering readers a chance to win a free iPad -- and implying that the deal is an exclusive offer from that site -- even including a deceptive trademark identifier (®) after the site's URL at the bottom left-hand corner of the ad.
When the user tries to close the ad, another pop-up appears, with one of those "do you really want to leave this site -- Yes or No" messages that make you wonder what you're really answering "Yes or No" to if you click it.
In the end, most users force-quit their browsers and write the site an angry e-mail (and rightly so).
This happened on my own site, and I'm trying to track the problem to its source. In the interest of sharing information, I will post my progress. But first, here are a few tips on making sure your readers aren't being innundated with annoying ads...
Read the entire post (and the follow-up) and comment there.