TR Forums

Political ads are pretty rare, are difficult to completely block, and come from both ideological sides through ad networks. So take comfort that the other side's probably just as offended as you are. I've seen'em from Newsmax, Huffpo, Cato Institute, and Moveon, among others.

The SpringCM banner, however, is indeed misbehaving. That one is geo-targeted to a short list of major metropolitan areas, so I hadn't seen it myself. I've disabled it until the ad agency can get it fixed.

As always, thanks for the heads-up.

- Adam

I had to think long and hard about that because the nearest metropolitan area is roughly 3 hours away (Chicago or St. Louis). But then I remembered that I'm on a VPN that routes me through the DFW area.

Chicagoland here. No wonder it was popping up.

But seriously, /highfive for taking care of this stuff! It's really nice to have ads blocked by the site when they are, as you put it, misbehaving.

On the topic of political ads, I really don't care. Any political statement or click-baiting that fits into an ad banner is pretty shallow and not really though provoking. Case in point, "Obama meltdown coming" and "Gun control?" I prefer my politics to have more depth than that.... [/soapbox]

Yeah, I've noticed geographical targeting too. Not just on this site, on other sites too. I got the above mentioned misbehaving ad earlier this morning at home (Chicago area). When on the web at work (via a NJ-based proxy) I sometimes see ads that are obviously aimed at people out east.

Inkling wrote:

The SpringCM banner, however, is indeed misbehaving. That one is geo-targeted to a short list of major metropolitan areas, so I hadn't seen it myself. I've disabled it until the ad agency can get it fixed.

I just got the misbehaving SpringCM banner. I don't think I've seen it until this morning, though.

edit: if it helps, I'm currently in Orange County (Southern California)

I think I may have found the cause of the dating ads coming up for people...
Have you visited Pirate Bay?
The ads there are almost 100% dating and that data may have been used to serve you more dating ads here.

It's back:

link

If they told you it was fixed, they lied.

derFunkenstein wrote:

It's back:

link

If they told you it was fixed, they lied.

+1, in WA
Was able to move the mouse cursor to avoid it though.

derFunkenstein wrote:

If they told you it was fixed, they lied.

If the fix was supposed to be that it doesn't auto-open without mouse-over it seems to work. The one on THIS PAGE (probably because we mentioned the product name a few times) only opens up if I deliberately mouse over it.

mortifiedPenguin wrote:

derFunkenstein wrote:

If they told you it was fixed, they lied.

If the fix was supposed to be that it doesn't auto-open without mouse-over it seems to work. The one on THIS PAGE (probably because we mentioned the product name a few times) only opens up if I deliberately mouse over it.

That was always the case for me, and it says "ROLLOVER TO OPEN" so I guess it's not so bad. It no longer covers the TR logo so I can leave the page I'm on now.

Speaking of weird ads being injected, Ars has this article up: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 ... for-hs-ok/

Pagey wrote:

Speaking of weird ads being injected, Ars has this article up: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 ... for-hs-ok/

I came here to post just this. Really scummy of that ISP and really scary for the potential abuse when you take what they did to extremes. Is HTTPS really the only way around it?

steelcity_ballin wrote:

Pagey wrote:

Speaking of weird ads being injected, Ars has this article up: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 ... for-hs-ok/

I came here to post just this. Really scummy of that ISP and really scary for the potential abuse when you take what they did to extremes. Is HTTPS really the only way around it?

Redirect r66t.com or any other offending address to 127.0.0.1 in your HOSTS file or block it at the router level.

Captain Ned wrote:

steelcity_ballin wrote:

Pagey wrote:

Speaking of weird ads being injected, Ars has this article up: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 ... for-hs-ok/

I came here to post just this. Really scummy of that ISP and really scary for the potential abuse when you take what they did to extremes. Is HTTPS really the only way around it?

Redirect r66t.com or any other offending address to 127.0.0.1 in your HOSTS file or block it at the router level.

Good call, Cap'n.

I use Do Not Track me on my browsers so I don't get any of the tailored ads. I use it not so much because of the privacy issue but more along the lines of why should Google and others make money off my info and not me as well. They want to track the websites I visit then cough up some cash, until then they get no info from me.

Captain Ned wrote:

steelcity_ballin wrote:

Pagey wrote:

Speaking of weird ads being injected, Ars has this article up: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 ... for-hs-ok/

I came here to post just this. Really scummy of that ISP and really scary for the potential abuse when you take what they did to extremes. Is HTTPS really the only way around it?

Redirect r66t.com or any other offending address to 127.0.0.1 in your HOSTS file or block it at the router level.

This works to protect your home network.

The only way for TR to protect itself is to purchase a SSL certificate and redirect 80 to 443.
Which is a nightmare for 3rd party content, like ads.

So hey, not to embarrass myself if others haven't noticed the same thing but wow there are a few ads on TR the past few days that are uncharacteristically tasteless. I know my browsing habits haven't changed and most of what I see are still PC hardware related or at least from Amazon or another online vendor - but there are some, errr, exceptions I can't explain...

drfish wrote:

So hey, not to embarrass myself if others haven't noticed the same thing but wow there are a few ads on TR the past few days that are uncharacteristically tasteless. I know my browsing habits haven't changed and most of what I see are still PC hardware related or at least from Amazon or another online vendor - but there are some, errr, exceptions I can't explain...

Any examples?

I haven't seen any off-color ones lately; mostly getting the typical PC-related stuff, plus some ads for VPS hosting services. The "off topic" ones seem to come in occasional waves, probably depends on what's in the ad networks' rotation.

I'll get screen shots next time I see one. Was mostly curious to see if anyone else had seen any funny ones slip though...

drfish wrote:

I'll get screen shots next time I see one. Was mostly curious to see if anyone else had seen any funny ones slip though...

Not lately. But I've definitely seen them in the past.

Just felt like bumping up this thread - recently I've noticed another set of strange Ads. I do not currently play WoW so it is kind of surprising to be bombarded by banners with "ilvl 522 armor up to $58" I probably shouldn't post the screenshot, but it mostly occurs in a "square" banner space on the top right of the main page. And when it is displayed - it has that little "AdChoices" tag on top of banner.

Edit: I also just got a banner with Ad for "Sharkini Swimsuit" and an appropriate photo... I am not against seeing a piece of female's skin, so to speak, but that was also kind of unexpecting...

Getting lots of Digi-Key ads tonight. Not sure why, but at least it is a company I have done business with in the past, and one that is definitely tech related (though at a much lower level than typically discussed here on the TR forums).

Okay, this morning I've been getting some play-on-mouseover CBS ads. I don't know if those were intended, but they're a bit annoying.