Forum Moderators: phranque
Now, I understand that this may not be considered "stealing traffic" - however, it does seem quite unethical and wrong.
I'm assuming this is probably happening with some other type of spyware type of software on the customers computer that allows another site to popup when a competitors site is accessed...but I don't know which software and where to start.
Has anyone else ran into this?
I would greatly appreciate knowing of a solution or list of the most common type of software I need to install so I can somehow duplicate this.
I know someone is probably wondering why we don't ask the customer to forward the order confirmation email he got from the other company...however, the customer is not technically inclined at all (I'm sure many of you know what its like trying to get someone to do something on their computer when they can barely find the power button)....long story short - this customer does not know how to forward an email. We even offered him a free product if he would forward the email.
What you've described is fairly common.
[lavasoftusa.com...]
prxomitron is great also, blocks ads.
Kazaa comes to mind... or Limewire. There are many others.
Just make sure you have a spyware removal app so you can remove the muck when you're done testing.
rharri
Simply re-publish your site to a slightly different URL. The spyware will still be targetting your original URL, as this will have been specified by the advertiser in their "hitlist" to the spyware company.
rharri - in short, no. Most users that sign up for spyware are agreeing to do so in return for access to a filesharing service. For example, Kazaa, which allows you to download files from other Kazaa users machines, comes with Gator bundled.
The customer has to agree to take the Gator application as part of the signup process for Kazaa.
Advertisers on Gator and WhenU and the like provide the company delivering the pop ups with a "hitlist" of sites that they would like to target. Typically, this would be a list of the advertiser's major competitors.
Although WhenU have just lost a court case involving American Blind, they are confident that they will win on appeal. Previous cases against both WhenU and Gator have been decided in their favour, their defence hanging on the fact that the users opted in to receiving the ad service when they signed up for the filesharing software.
I think what the problem may be is with individual companies trying to take on companies like Gator. Has anyone thought of a class action lawsuit?
Anyway - I think I will install some adware. Does anyone know of more besides Gator?
If you can't republish your URL there is another option, but it's on kinda sticky ground from an ethics point of view. Open a Gator/WhenU campaign against the people that have been stealing your traffic - that way when they get redirected from your site they'll theoretically get redirected back. Of course, the winner here will be the site that can suck the most traffic into actual sales.
Of course, this is a sort of tongue in cheek suggestion - if the customer gets pop ups wherever he goes for his widgets, eventually he'll just choose which site to buy from and close the pop up window.
It conjures up an interesting image though, where the poor customer gets continually bounced from one seller to another courtesy of Gator and/or WhenU.
Of course, unless this type of advertising is brought to heel, eventually this silly scenario could well become a reality. If the courts support their activities, then we will all be forced into a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" activity where the online world is full of popups.
In my own view, the integration of pop up stoppers into browsers will kill them off eventually, but only once the majority of the online population has upgraded its OS.
