Advertising. The attempt to send information to people to convince
them to spend their money with a certain company. This concept
is the foundation of much of the modern financial world. The ads
can attack any of the senses. Sight, hearing, touch even smell
or taste. For example movie popcorn has a specific smell that's
been refined over years to entice others in the movie theater
to buy their own large bucket.
Advertising is big business. Billions of dollars are spent each
MONTH on advertising. Many industries exist solely due to the
influx of money advertising brings in. The cable TV industry,
magazines, newspapers and many other media and non-media industries
would be drastically changed if they couldn't sell advertising
space.
Plus we wouldn't know what to buy.
Because of these facts, companies try all sorts of tactics to
get our attention and money. Sometimes these
attempts involve illegal, underhanded or dirty tricks.
Some examples of illegal tricks involve the
old bait and switch. This tactic requires placing an ad
for an item at tremendous value. Upon reaching the store, the
shoppers finds that the item is "no longer available"
and in order to alleviate their sorrow at missing the deal they
are directed to a similar item that, while not as good of a bargain
(sometimes no bargain at all) closely matches what they came in
for.
An example would be an ad for a brand new computer with P3 1.2
Gig processor, 256 megs of Ram, 60 Gig hard drive, DVD, cd-writer
and free software for only $599.95. What a bargain! As soon as
you inquire: "I'm sorry, we're all sold out of that amazing
deal, but since you need a computer, I can show you this one.
It only has half as much processing power, ram or hard drive,
but that sale item was probably too big for you anyway. It's a
steal at just $600. If you need the DVD, I can have one installed
for only $99..." and off you go being sold an item that you
didn't initially want.
Why is this advertising method illegal? For two reasons.
* It relies on false information
* It works way too well
One of the main problems is that often times, these underhanded
techniques work all too well. They're based on deception, misdirection
and other highly refined but sharply unethical techniques.
In many ways, and especially on the internet, the porn industry
has had its share of unethical advertising.
One of the most common tactics used by the porn industry websites
is to create pages that rank well for unrelated but "free"
stuff. You are searching for something, say information on the
latest Angelina Jolie movie, on the search engines and you see
a search result offering free videos of Ms. Jolie. Sounds cool
of course and you head to a page which flashes tons of banner
ads (Which the owner gets paid for if you click on any of them.
Another unethical practice.) The page offers secret pictures and
videos of Ms. Jolie completely naked. Just click this link. You
click and go to another dizzying array of ads before finding another
link. You end up at a page that offers plenty of sexy naked women.
All you have to do is fill in your name and credit card number...
And there you are, tempted to pay for pictures that have nothing
to do with Angelina Jolie (Or if they do, they are often her face
placed on top of some nude model.) but there you are anyway. You
most likely don't even remember what you were searching for in
the first place. (Info on her latest movie ring a bell?)
Does this technique work? Would the entire industry use it if
it didn't?
Sometimes, the advertising attempt is covered in a veneer to
make it sound OK to people with objections. They say they are
just trying to offer "relevant content" to people that
may want it, or say that all they have to do to stop receiving
the ad is... If you receive e-zines with ads on them and don't
want the e-zine anymore, sometimes it involves an act of congress
and a true sighting of Godzilla to get off their list.
Advertising works best when it's aimed at
"people who would most likely use the product". Because
of this many unethical attempts are done to place ads in places
they shouldn't be.
Let's say that Nike created an ad campaign of spray painting
ads onto sidewalks. After all, people who are walking obviously
need shoes, and they'll want the latest from Nike, right? Hey,
this isn't defacing property. This is a major corporation simply
marking it's products to it's customers. That shouldn't be a problem,
right? Never mind that they didn't pay the owners of the sidewalks
for ad space. That's no big deal. (NOTE: To date, I'm not aware
of Nike or anyone else doing this kind of ad campaign.)
I'm waiting for the day when someone creates prescription glasses
that the wearer gets for free. The glasses simply flash occasional
ads on the bottom right hand portion of the lens. Would this be
unethical? What if you weren't told about the ads until after
you got the glasses?
Where to draw the line?
So what line can we draw to tell unethical advertising from ethical
advertising? The simplest method is: Does
the ad campaign rely on misinformation or misdirection?
If the ad lies to the customer promising one thing but then tries
to deliver something else, that is unethical. Period.
How much further can advertising go? I think I found it.
The bottom of the barrel?
A company that I have found recently is guilty of many unethical
practices, all at the same time. That company is Ezula.
They have a made a program that creates link ads on all webpage
you view. They sell particular words or phrases to companies as
advertising fees. This browser plug-in reads the words on the
webpage you're reading and if it finds one of these words/phrases,
it creates a link out of it that goes to the paying customer.
For example, if the webpage you're reading has the phrase "hotel
reservations" and you have this plug-in, then it creates
a link out of that phrase that points to expedia.com. Nevermind
that I, as a web designer didn't want that link there. That money
making link shows up whether I like it or not.
You don't even have to download this program. It comes with another
popular, but unrelated program: Kazaa. A program to find and download
mp3's. Kazaa has raised in popularity with Napsters demise.
So let's see what's happening:
* The company Ezula creates a browser plug-in that can make links
on every webpage you view based on a database of phrases. If the
phrase is in the database, the link is made.
* Since it's a browser plug-in, they don't have to adjust anyone's
HTML coding. It doesn't affect the computer next to you or the
one next door, it just adjusts the computer it's installed on.
* Ezula then "sells" these phrases, or rather sells
the link. When we click on this link, they pay money to Ezula.
Let's see just how many unethical practices this entails:
Stealing ad space
They are selling the phrases on MY website and they aren't paying
me a dime. I, as a website developer get nothing from this. They
are selling ad space on my site, and not paying me.
If I created a device that could be placed on the TV cable outside
your home and inserted little ads into your TV shows that the
cable company didn't authorize, I could then sell advertising
space. Of course, what I was doing would surely be found illegal
and they would make me stop.
Defacing property
There is also the fact that they are defacing my site, in terms
of adjusting it without my consent, or even knowledge.
here is the argument that web designers already don't have much
control over how a webpage is presented because different browsers
can show the same webpage in slightly (in some cases drastic)
ways. Therefore, they shouldn't complain that some program might
alter the look their sight.
However website developers care very much about how their site
is presented. We care so much, that we often remake our entire
site in three or four ways then use methods to send browsers to
the correct version so the viewer will get what we want them to
get.
But what do I do about this? I would have to search all my entire
sites for ezula-linked words and change my wording. This is impossible
since some of the words Ezula links are simple ones like "sports"
or "mortgage". These words are hard to skirt around
all the time.
Gambling with people's honor
Then there's the matter of honor in terms of content. If I write
an article about gambling, links would be created that point to
websites that I don't endorse. If someone doesn't understand that
I didn't place that particular link and they get angry at me thinking
that I am endorsing something that I'm not, what can I do? My
reputation depends on making sure certain ethical standards aren't
crossed.
One page on a site I work on focuses on kid friendly links. Parents
trust that page and expect me to keep it very clean. If a sentence
like "I'm betting this will work." shows up and the
term betting creates a link to an online gambling casino, I'm
in trouble.
Back door installation
This program comes piggybacked almost hidden in Kazaa's program.
there is nothing on Kazaa's website that even remotely suggests
that this program will also be downloaded and installed along
with the program you intend to get. This in itself is unethical,
although an increasingly common tactic.
Ezula claims that all you have to do is opt-out when you install
Kazaa. There is one (and only one) screen where you can choose
to not have Ezula's program installed. You are barely even told
what the program does. As we have already mentioned, not everyone
on the internet is computer savvy. To get a program installed
is quite a feat, much less install just the correct one's when
multiple programs are added.
When you install Internet Explorer, it installs some programs
that are associated with it, such as Macromedia Flash plug-ins.
The Ezula program has nothing to do with Kazaa's program whatsoever.
Shame on Kazaa for installing this, and three other unrelated,
programs.
Even though I am computer savvy, if I didn't know about this
program, I would have installed it too without thinking about
it. The only reason anyone would be given to not install it would
be because of bad publicity like this program deserves.
Changing identities
This program used to be called Toptext, this is the name most
who know this situation still call it, but right after the bad
news came out, they have changed the name of the program. In fact
they have changed the name four times. There program has been
called TopText, HOTtext, DesktopDollars and now ContextPro.
The only reason for doing this that I can think of would be to
escape the bad publicity this program is generating.
Hacking in the name of corporate business
They are hacking sites, in the sense that they are altering the
look of the sites without my consent.
If I somehow could place ad links on all the government sites
that they didn't authorize, how soon do you think they would label
me a hacker and shut me down? It wouldn't matter if I hacked into
their site, or created a browser plug-in and gave it secretly
to tons of users.
But, since this is done in the name of business I guess it's
OK.
If I created a company called Duplitech Inc. and grabbed a bunch
of popular and expensive software programs and hacked them so
anyone could install them without having to register them and
offered the hacked versions for sale at $5 each or 5 for $20,
I would make tons of money. Since this is done in the name of
business I guess it's OK. (NOTE: Some of you might think this
is at odds with my article on hacking, but re-read it and you'll
see it's not.)
Opting out takes trust
In Ezula's defense, they have a system where they can place domains
on a "do not place links here" list. Being on this list
keeps links from showing up on your site. So anyone who doesn't
want links can just place their sites on this list and everything
is OK, right?
Of course not. I dare you find out how to get on this list. There's
no information about it on their website. There's information
about this list in their install information, privacy policy,
terms of use, nothing. There is no public place that tells you
how to be placed on this list. If you can't find the list, you
can't get off of it.
OK so you finally find out that in order to get on the list you
must email support@ezula.com with a list of the domains that you
want no links to appear on. Well, now you have to wait and see
if they place your domains on the list. What if they "forget"?
Then you have to contact them again, and again and...
Also, what if someone downloads a local version of your site?
Or what if a cached version of the page appears, such as in Google's
Cache section? The links show up again and there's nothing you
can do about that one ever.
Hypocrites in action
This is by far the crowning piece of unethical advertising.
Ezula claims that this marketing action is not intrusive to any
website. They claim it's not hurting anyone to place these simple
links on other people's site. Oh Really?
One of the phrases currently being sold is "online business",
which happens to be on their own site at http://www.ezula.com/news/media_coverage.asp.
But if you have their program and look at that page, you'll find
that phrase isn't linked.
Well, maybe it somehow doesn't meet the link criteria. Maybe
there's two spaces between the words so it doesn't match. Let's
look at google's cached version of that page. Since the cached
page is at google.com which isn't on the list.
Low and behold the link appears. Let's go back to their page
and download a local version and look at that. Gee, there's the
link again.
Ezula claims their links don't cause any harm to anyone, but
they don't allow the links on their own site!!
If I sold some unethical product and claimed it was perfectly
safe for everyone, but refused to use it myself, what would people
think?
Is Ezula the bottom of the barrel? Unfortunately not. Will people
and businesses stoop to lower depths? Yep. But as long as we let
obviously unethical and illegal actions go unpunished, these actions
will get larger and more invasive.
8/7/2001 Update
It appears that another company has been trying the "keyword
sale" game. Gator sells keywords which create popup ads.
This is being used to create popup ads at competitor's websites.
For example going to AmericanAirlines.com would popup an ad for
Delta Air Lines. The reasoning is this: Someone shopping the competitor
would be a perfect target for promotions.
Here's a question: What if Chevy sent tons of people to stand
outside BMW dealerships with bullhorns. Whenever a customer comes
onto the BMW lot the Chevy people would yell through the bullhorn,
"HEY, YOU THERE, ON THE BMW LOT. COME ON OVER TO THE CHEVY
DEALERSHIP AND I'LL GIVE YOU A COUPON FOR $50 OFF A NEW CAR. I'LL
EVEN DRIVE YOU THERE FOR FREE." Those people aren't on private
property, they're just marketing to people just like these keyword
popup ads.
I'd love to see businesses doing this. That would be great during
lunch.
HEY, YOU IN THE MCDONALDS DRIVE THROUGH. I'LL GIVE YOU $5.00
OFF YOUR NEXT MEAL AT WENDY'S IF YOU DRIVE THROUGH WITHOUT PAYING.
Maybe I need to start selling bullhorns. I'd be rich.
HEY, YOU. $9.00 OFF YOUR NEXT BULLHORN FROM ACE HARDWARE!
Who said that?
by Josh Rubak
reprinted with mission from the author
Please visit his web page located at: http://www.rubak.com/
Special
TopText & Surf+ UpDate 11/02/04
We have discovered that there are Contextual Advertising
Links which look very similar to TopText & Surf+ links
which are legitimate and sponsored by participating web
sites for more information
click here! |
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