Some web advertisers are just plain dumb

A few days ago, I thought it would be fun to participate in a team effort to buy land for preservation through the EcologyFund.com site. It’s the same principle as the Hunger Site. Click the buttons and land (or food) is purchased/donated by advertisers. At the EcologyFund site, you can nearly double the amount of land purchased per click by visiting the various sponsoring advertisers. Seemed like a fair deal until I tried it a couple of times. Holy smokes, did I end up with a computer load of adware and cookies that popped up ads with annoying frequency. I deleted something like 30 cookies and zapped another 6 adware devices that had been installed in my computer registry. As a result, I’m not going near that site again. That would be my definition of a bad business practice. Not only will I avoid the EcologyFund site, I’ll also avoid their advertisers like the plague.

On a hopeful note, according to Slashdot today:

"Today the house passed two bills aimed at stopping spyware / adware and unauthorized use of computers. H.R. 29 makes it ‘unlawful for any person who is not the owner or authorized user of a protected computer to engage in deceptive acts or practices’. H.R. 744 (I-SPY Act) prohibits accessing a protected system via code copied on to the system to, among other things, disseminate personal information. Both bills sailed through the house and are expected to be passed by the Senate."

How nice it would be to navigate the web (as well as install reputable software) without adware and spyware being surreptitiously installed on my computer. Hope the bill passes the Senate. I hope it works without loopholes big enough to float barges through it.

Did you know?
Now you can set up your own Personalized Google Home Page? I like it. It shows me up to nine of my latest Gmails, listed by sender—along with weather, local movies, news headlines, a stock market tracker, Word of the Day, famous quotes, driving instructions/directions with maps—and, of course, the standard Google search bar. Several customizing options offered. It’s not fancy, staying pretty true to Google’s plain blue and white style. Loads really fast, though. And it’s handy.

Compromise
Well, if that’s what they want to call it. Referring to the Senate’s Compromise last night preserving the filibuster until the next time. So the issues on the table were: confirmation of ultra-conservative (even by Texas standards) judicial nominees who will affect many, many lives and the threat by majority leader Frist to break a 214 year old Senate filibuster rule by scrapping the filibuster so that the Dems would have most of the rest of their fangs yanked out by the roots—such as they had, which is debatable.

The result of the compromise was: confirmation of sucky ultra-conservative judicial nominees is pretty much guaranteed and the filibuster is preserved, except the Dems can’t use it in the way that it was intended to be used. I think the idea is that the Republicans have to approve first or we go back to scrapping the filibuster. That’s a heck of a compromise.

But..but… the Prez got his hands slapped for sending crappy judicial nominees up for consideration. Given what we know about the Prez’s attitude, that he doesn’t give much of a damn what anyone else thinks, I have my doubts whether he felt rebuked or felt any sting on the backs of his hands this morning. The only possible benefit that I can see is that Frist discovered he’s not God. Otherwise, I’m not celebrating The Compromise. In case you wondered.