Companies That End Run Pop-Up Blocking to Shove Their Advertising Down Your Throat, and How to Stop Them 3/25/2008 - 1,472 views,
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Don’t you just hate it when you have your pop up blocker enabled, such as the free pop up blocker that comes with FireFox, and somehow, you still find that some companies and websites have managed to get around your pop up blockers, and shove their advertising down your throat (or up your browser, as it were)? As quickly as we figure out how to stop pop ups, it seems, the companies find ways around it, for example using stealth new browser windows, also sometimes known as “pop unders”, to shove paid advertising down your throat. And because the new pop under window is opened quietly in the background, under your current browser window, you often don’t even find them until days later, when you finally close down your browser for one reason or another and find them laying there, like so many dead flies trapped between your window and the screen. Eeew. Two such companies from which we’re seeing this a lot lately are Casale Media (CasaleMedia.com) and the Yield Manager division of Right Media Casale Media and Yield Manager both sell advertising which then gets shoved onto your computer when you visit one of their customer’s website. Even if you have pop-up blocking enabled. How are they doing this? Well, says Casale Media, “The technologies we use to deliver, target, and optimize your campaigns go far beyond established norms and standards for performance.” Well, we’d agree with that. They explain that their Casale Media Optimax product “enables advertisers to reach their target audiences on a These are the sites where, when you visit one of them, Casale (and, to be fair, the site - which is Casale’s customer) manages to end run your pop-up blocker. They do it by - instead of a typical pop up - actually causing your web browser to open a brand new window - they tell your browser to make it a small window, rather than a full size window, so it looks like a pop-up, but it’s really a browser window. So, how can you get around these parasites? About the only easy way - accessible to the general public - is to install software or extensions (depending on which browser you use) which provide parental controls - that is, they allow you to stop your browser from visiting certain sites (which sites is up to you). While these applications and tools are meant to keep children from accidentally (or intentionally) visiting sites which their parents deem offensive for children, the same technology can be used to prevent your browser from visiting sites which you deem offensive for adults - namely sites that are trying to shove ads down your throat. Here at the Internet Patrol we use a Firefox extension called “LeechBlock” which allows us to block our browser from accessing any site - and in our list of forbidden sites we added - you got it, CasaleMedia.com and YieldManager.com Psst…if you aren’t already using Firefox, which is free, you should be.
massive scale across thousands of premium sites”.
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