Just when you thought N54 couldn't get any lower

[Nystul]

Look at what happened to my old post on the old RBD forum (and many other posts too, if you care to look for them): http://www.network54.com/Forum/message?for...geid=1087003483

There is a hypertext link in the post that wasn't there before. It is a sponsored link to a D2 site, and it has apparently been automatically inserted in place of the word "Diablo" in all posts that have that word. To me this crosses the line from ridiculous to absurd. I'm not sure if it is worth writing grumpy mail to N54 about it, because it seems obvious that they are going in the wrong direction in terms of anything resembling a useful service.

[KingOfPain]

Mozilla is not seeing it. IE does.

KoP

[Lissa]

Check your system for spyware. It may not be N54 as there is a spyware program called newdotnet that looks for keywords and then links to a site that is part of their merchants/advertisers list.

[Nystul]

Well I had plenty of spyware to get rid of, but this problem is specific to the old RBD forum and it is still happening. So I would say it is a new form of advertisement from N54.

Perhaps, though, it is time for me to ditch IE and use a... less targeted browser.

[T-hawk]

FWIW, I'm not seeing it in Opera either. So either it isn't active at the moment on N54, or N54 does browser sniffing and serves that behavior only to IE, or it is indeed a client-side spyware problem. Nystul, you might want to grab Firefox or Opera and see if you still have the same problem - and then continue to use a better browser anyway.

[LKendter]

Well I was curious, and I see the sponsered link. I am running IE6.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I was curious and took a quick look into the N54 page source code and made a google search, and it turned out that N54 is now using IntelliTXT, a css/JavaScript-based advertising system from Vibrant Media. It automatically replaces keywords in article-based webpages (like the N54 forum) with ad links without using any client-based spyware, but only CSS and JavaScript. But it seems they are using features of either CSS or JavaScript or both that won't run on non-Microsoft browsers. So not only is N54 sinking lower and lower with their aggressive ad strategy, they also have invested money into an advertisement system that won't reach part of the target group...

-Kylearan

[Sirian]

Network 54 and Internet Exploder... Two sets of interests who are not looking out for me! Good riddance to both.

- Sirian

[CelticHound]

I don't see it in IE 6, but I have proximitron running...

-- CH