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This got 5 stars?????
Yet more goofiness from the e-mail grab bag.
This is an cut from an anti-spyware site:
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Hotbar
This is a fairly new one. We received their unsolicited e-mail through one of our e-mail addresses and it reads as follows:
Hi, I thought you might be interested in a marketing program that will place your clients' logo and link on 4,000,000 users' Internet Explorer browsers specifically when users visit relevant sites or search for related keywords. Hotbar's recently released toolbar allows for this non-intrusive targeted advertising via buttons that change while users surf to relate to the websites they visit so for instance a Web Hosting advertiser can place their button on our bar that will appear when users visit other web hosting sites. Alternatively we can deliver a flash popup to any url you choose on a cpc basis. You determine which sites you want your ad to appear on and when a user visits any of those sites we'll send your pop up. We can generate targeted traffic for any category of advertiser. Please contact me if you are interested in more information. Best, E. M., Business Development Manager, Hotbar.com, Inc.
Hotbar collects and stores information about the web pages you view and the data you enter in search engine search fields while using the software (some browser toolbar you can download for free). While using the Hotbar toolbar, Hotbar uses this information to determine which ads and buttons are displayed in the toolbar and which ads to show your browser (including Flash popups). As the above unsolicited e-mail states: they can deliver a flash popup to any url the advertiser chooses. When you visit web sites with the toolbar installed (the "Service"), Hotbar collects information about the web sites you visit and the pages you view. Hotbar stores your IP address, domain name, URL of the web page you are visiting, information about your browser, information about your computer's operating system, your Hotbar cookie number and the date/time the above information is logged. When you type search terms into a search engine, the search term you entered is transmitted from your computer and stored by Hotbar. Also stored is what toolbar buttons you click on, what links within the toolbar buttons you click on, the amount of time you have used it during each session, what browser skins you have downloaded during any given session, and if you have encountered forms where you have entered your personal information, this may be stored as well (if the site you entered the information at, forwards the entered information via form scripts). Hotbar serves ads from some well known ad networks.
Amazingly, this program received a 5-star rating from ZDnet?
Why would anyone want a toolbar in their browser showing advertising buttons (don't we get enough advertising in one day to last us a lifetime?) and why would anyone want the 'non-intrusive' popups with every web site visited?
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This is getting rediculaus (sp?). When a blatently advertised spy ware application can be reviewed and given a 5 star rating by a respectable (?) outfit like ZDNet... How many people, based on the rating from ZDNet, have installed this? Not many here, I admit, but we are insignificant compared to the online total.
And the part about unsolicitated, read SPAM, makes it even worse. Very few web users that have experience would even open the e-mail. Thus it targets the newbies/non techs right off the bat.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
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