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Adobe abuses AdSense to force “We Love Apple” pop-ups for Mac, Opera users
11–20 of 39 posts
Re: Adobe abuses AdSense to force “We Love Apple” pop-ups for Mac, Opera users
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't find out about the pop-ups until about 2am, and was exhausted, before I finished writing the post I accidentally closed the tab, and lost the ad, because Google yanked it, presumably. I'm still not certain about how it was occurring but it was all javascript, about a dozen different script tags, with the exception of this one piece that called the flash. My main focus was on the point that Adobe was targetin…
Oh, I wasn't criticising your piece! I just see a bigger story in how the ad was delivered rather than to whom. Anything that gets around my choice of not opening popups is evil to start, but I'm very intrigued if this really is coming through Adsense or some other mechanism. If Adobe can take advantage of it, perhaps more insidious agents could too..
It was definitely coming through Adsense, the code on my post was within the ad, which had multiple indicators that it was indeed from Google. The only proof that is left is the DoubleClick header, and the link within the "url" variable.
I'm also a bit perturbed that someone could emulate what Adobe has done, and use it as an attack vector, with widespread consequence.
Re: Adobe abuses AdSense to force “We Love Apple” pop-ups for Mac, Opera users
#13Adobe might have to pay a lot of $$$ not to be banned from goog
Re: Adobe abuses AdSense to force “We Love Apple” pop-ups for Mac, Opera users
#14Are we sure Adobe is behind this? Anyone can make an ad saying they are anyone.
That's true, but why would someone advertise for Adobe? The linked content goes to Adobe's page, on the topic, http://www.adobe.com/choice/?sdid=GXRVD , as well as use the same ads as they used in the papers yesterday.
Good question, but this still seems fishy to me. Why would they do something that would so obviously backfire? And unless I misread something, the ad doesn't even work without Flash. If they're trying to target iPad / iPhone users deprived of Flash, why would you make an ad that doesn't work without Flash installed? This seems very amateur-ish.
Re: Adobe abuses AdSense to force “We Love Apple” pop-ups for Mac, Opera users
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's true, but why would someone advertise for Adobe? The linked content goes to Adobe's page, on the topic, http://www.adobe.com/choice/?sdid=GXRVD , as well as use the same ads as they used in the papers yesterday.
Good question, but this still seems fishy to me. Why would they do something that would so obviously backfire? And unless I misread something, the ad doesn't even work without Flash. If they're trying to target iPad / iPhone users deprived of Flash, why would you make an ad that doesn't work without Flash installed? This seems very amateur-ish.
They aren't targeting iPhone/iPad users by default, they are only going after "Mac" and "Opera" User-Agents, that also have Flash 8 or higher.
They're calling out Apple through it's other core base, that can use Flash. The Flash also isn't in the add on Linux or Windows, unless of course you are using Opera. If you are using one of these systems or those without, or disabled, Flash, you only see a hyperlinked .gif.
Re: Adobe abuses AdSense to force “We Love Apple” pop-ups for Mac, Opera users
#16Are we sure Adobe is behind this? Anyone can make an ad saying they are anyone.
That's true, but why would someone advertise for Adobe? The linked content goes to Adobe's page, on the topic, http://www.adobe.com/choice/?sdid=GXRVD , as well as use the same ads as they used in the papers yesterday.
> why would someone advertise for Adobe?
There may be a lot of reasons like business disruption, and fun. Or may be just Adobe going nuts!
Re: Adobe abuses AdSense to force “We Love Apple” pop-ups for Mac, Opera users
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's true, but why would someone advertise for Adobe? The linked content goes to Adobe's page, on the topic, http://www.adobe.com/choice/?sdid=GXRVD , as well as use the same ads as they used in the papers yesterday.
> why would someone advertise for Adobe? There may be a lot of reasons like business disruption, and fun. Or may be just Adobe going nuts!
Also there was a comment, from an Adobe employee, than confirmed this was one of their projects, http://staynalive.com/articles/2010/05/14/adobe-and-google-s...
Re: Adobe abuses AdSense to force “We Love Apple” pop-ups for Mac, Opera users
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why would someone advertise for Adobe? There may be a lot of reasons like business disruption, and fun. Or may be just Adobe going nuts!
Also there was a comment, from an Adobe employee, than confirmed this was one of their projects, http://staynalive.com/articles/2010/05/14/adobe-and-google-s...
Actually he confirmed that the Choice campaign was one of their projects and goes on to say that he doubted that Adobe would have wasted bandwidth on developing something so nefarious. At least that's my read of it.
"For what it's worth, this project was done with a rather rapid turnaround, and I'd be surprised if there was bandwidth to innovate new ways of disrupting popup disruptors within it...."
Re: Adobe abuses AdSense to force “We Love Apple” pop-ups for Mac, Opera users
#19The piece doesn't speculate much on how this is getting forced through Adsense. That's the interesting part for me, as either Google is aware of it, or it's an against-terms workaround. If I had to /guess/, it might be related to the "rich media" and video formats they offer, with some custom code getting pushed through in the embed.
Does Google allow third party tags to fill unused inventory via Doubleclick? Or perhaps do they allow SWF as the trafficked creative? If so, either could be a vector for the code to slip through.
Re: Adobe abuses AdSense to force “We Love Apple” pop-ups for Mac, Opera users
#20Bonus for users without Flash installed: the ad doesn't work.
So basically all Adobe is doing is irritating people who are already users of Flash and giving them a reason to disable it.