Dodgy adverts - please report here

One of our advertising networks has now been disabled as it looks like the banned formats have been coming through them.

Please let me know if you see these again!

Still getting the Diesel advert today. Cleared my saved images cache etc yesterday.

today I'm getting some sort of US spectacles advert.

I seem to get advertising next to Forum posts which I don't remember seeing until recently. e.g. there's a Eurostar ad to the right of pRy's post two up from this one.

and people still wonder why adblockers are so popular!

Futurama saw that coming...

Just been hit with an Hitachi ad, that has the irritating "force scroll" up to where the ad is that came along with the Diesel one.

My antivirus has just flashed and cancelled a connection to xml.plaimedia.com because it is infected by a redirecting virus. I had not clicked on anything.

Edited by FLB, 26 November 2017 - 19:59.

HMV ad in Racing comments won't let me scroll down the page - keeps bouncing the page back to the top.

It's playing a mini video in the area normally reserved for the wide banners at the top: https://gcdn.2mdn.ne...2/file/file.mp4

If I sit and watch it, every so often an actual banner ad flashes on screen before the little video takes over again.

Edited by GhostR, 08 December 2017 - 16:31.

We've an auto playing, auto scrolling, auto repeating advert back again.

Same style of ad.. a little video window on a black backrgound. 

(Product is "bull dog skincare")

Edited by pRy, 11 December 2017 - 15:54.

I'm getting a really annoying video ad at the top of the page... the ads are for all kinds of things...I've seen HMV, Nicorette and most recently BrightHouse (shudder).  The ad makes reading pages almost impossible as when I try to scroll down it bounces back to the top of the page where the ad is.

This, and the search function not working, is really spoiling my enjoyment of this forum.

Thanks for the reports.

Can you guys confirm that these video ads have only been seen on desktop (ie. not mobile phones) and in the UK? If so, I think we've got our culprit and I'll get it blacklisted.

I'm getting the HMV ones as well. Desktop only. Fine on my phone or tablet.

The frame appears to link to the following (for reference)

https://gcdn.2mdn.ne...2/file/file.mp4

This HMV ad is making this forum literally impossible to read.

Thanks for the reports.

 

Can you guys confirm that these video ads have only been seen on desktop (ie. not mobile phones) and in the UK? If so, I think we've got our culprit and I'll get it blacklisted.

Bit delayed, but yes can confirm all of the above.

I'm not familiar with that ad, but nothing should be able to get out of its ad slot/wrapper...

Could you take a screenshot and post it here or send it to simon.grayson@autosport.com please?

Thanks Paul. Could you let me know which country you're in?

And if this happens again, could you copy the URL that you're taken to and let me know what it is?

Edited by paulogman, 21 December 2017 - 19:06.

Edited by Afterburner, 29 December 2017 - 18:53.

I've had an instance of these "get a free iPhone" ad taking over my tab today. I'm on iOS 11.2, and on a French mobile network.

Yep, I get them every day.

And Grayson, only getting them on my iPhone, not my Apple laptop.

Edit: Also in the US, California currently but got them in Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, Kansas……..

Doesn't matter what thread I'm on.

Edited by E1pix, 22 December 2017 - 22:49.

I'm on Android, in the mobile layout of the forum, in The Netherlands. For the last couple of days there is an ad from "financiallease.nl", which is so long (vertically) that it is on top of (and as a result hides) the two posts below the ad.

Edited by Winterapfel, 26 December 2017 - 06:48.

For those people who seem to think this is an easy thing to fix or control, perhaps I can recommend you read this article?

For those people who seem to think this is an easy thing to fix or control, perhaps I can recommend you read this article?
The great online advertising swindle

Thanks for the share, interesting read.

I still think that Autosport (Motorsport Network) should be able to do better though. No other website I use daily come close in how bad is it here. Particularly on mobile.

This advert keeps scrolling the page back to itself so I can't read other posts:

<div class=" __cedato_content_poster" style="background-image: url(&quot;https://i.irzoo.com/...-480.jpg&#34;);"></div>

edit: after posting this while keeping the source thread in its own tab, the scrolling seems to have stopped, so it may be something that happens while it loads, although it seems to go on for a lot longer than it takes to read new posts.

Edited by R Soul, 27 December 2017 - 17:27.

Latest advert taking control of my browser is another video ad, this time for "Player Unknowns Battlegrounds" on the Xbox. Great game. But I don't need the ad to keep scrolling my browser up to the top of the page.

Edited by pRy, 28 December 2017 - 00:05.

Same issue. This time a Gov.Uk advert regarding child abuse.

Edited by pRy, 06 January 2018 - 14:02.

The solution would be of course to not sell to ad farms but stick with "manual" static ads always under control of the webmaster. But of course that would spoil the holy grail of modern advertising, i.e. targeting, and bring quite a bit less money. So... greed is the ultimate reason you have to endure this, duh.

The funny thing is, in my personal experience I'm "targeted" correctly by ads about 1 out of 10 times, the rest is stuff I wouldn't buy or invest in even with cash to spare.

The solution would be of course to not sell to ad farms but stick with "manual" static ads always under control of the webmaster.

In which case many of our members would see ads which were entirely unsuited to their geographical location. British advertisers aren't going to pay good money for ads shown to Europe, the USA or Australia if their products aren't available there. Or vice versa.

The funny thing is, in my personal experience I'm "targeted" correctly by ads about 1 out of 10 times, the rest is stuff I wouldn't buy or invest in even with cash to spare.

I use ad blockers, but if Amazon's 'recommended for you' is anything to go by there's something seriously wrong with the algorithms. I've no idea why Amazon should think I would want either a lock picking kit or an automatic aquarium fish feeder 'based on your previous purchases'.

In which case many of our members would see ads which were entirely unsuited to their geographical location. British advertisers aren't going to pay good money for ads shown to Europe, the USA or Australia if their products aren't available there. Or vice versa.

 

Nah, that's no valid reason to use ad farms. Showing different ads based on location can be implemented locally on the website. Of course not nearly as flexible as described in the article you linked further up this page.

I use ad blockers, but if Amazon's 'recommended for you' is anything to go by there's something seriously wrong with the algorithms. I've no idea why Amazon should think I would want either a lock picking kit or an automatic aquarium fish feeder 'based on your previous purchases'.

 

 

Well, that's also partly explained in the article. The whole thing has gotten too complex to be controlled by humans and at the same time there are many humans in the chain more than happy to sell hot air, so it's basically a bunch of half-cooked algorhytms left alone fighting with eachother in cyberspace. But hey, it's the future!

Thanks both.

JP - I assume that's on mobile?

Thanks. We've paused one of our ad networks who I suspect to be the culprit.

If anyone sees another one of these, could you let me know so that I know it wasn't only that network?

Thanks Noikeee.

To confirm, when you say you're being redirected, do you mean that you're being forcibly sent to that site without clicking on any ads or anything?

Thanks Noikeee.

 

To confirm, when you say you're being redirected, do you mean that you're being forcibly sent to that site without clicking on any ads or anything?

Yes. I'm browsing the forums and suddenly without clicking anything, the address has changed to that.

Something called ScribbleLive is playing hell with my machine today. Kaspersky has so far blocked almost 500 attempts to collect data.

Something called ScribbleLive is playing hell with my machine today. Kaspersky has so far blocked almost 500 attempts to collect data.

Scribble Live is the tool which powers the live coverage - I presume you've been on the page with the live coverage of the final day of the Barcelona test?

If you've got any more info about what Kaspersky is telling you (or a screenshot), could you share that with me so that I can ask our developers to look into this?