Section 4 - The Wonders of Online Advertisement

Then:

            We have all experienced the same situation at least once in our time spent on the Internet: one may be downloading a shareware game or browsing a wiki when suddenly a window “pops up”, usually taking up most of the screen in the process, and advertises some random product, miracle cure, or update to one’s currently installed software. The hapless Internet browser in this instance, be it myself or someone else, just encountered a pop-up advertisement. Originally created back in the late 1990’s by coder Ethan Zuckerman as a response to complaints of banner ads being run on pages containing inappropriate content, this alternative to banners quickly evolved into something that Zuckerman went out of his way to apologize for a little over a decade later (O’Toole, 2014). Specifically, pop-up ads are designed so they do not go away until the Internet browser manually closes the window or a built-in timer winds down to a specific length before automatically closing (Sharma et. al, 2011). There is another, more malicious and potentially harmful branch of pop-up advertisements that do not rely entirely on websites, but those will be touched upon later.

While most pop-ups are generally not this meta, they are nigh guaranteed to look like this after the sixth or so pop-up.

            Even though pop-ups have become the bane of many an Internet browser’s existence, they do provide some benefits for both the businesses that make use of them along with the consumers that are subjected to them. An obvious pro for online businesses in using the advertisements is that they are very effective in making the consumer focus on the message or product of the advertisement. Instead of just existing in the background like banners do, they jump out and demand that the consumer looks at the window if only to close it. Consumers also benefit from ads of good intent by providing information to the ad owner’s consumer base, and in doing so the ad owner can make decisions that more accurately please the consumer. In a more indirect manner, browsers benefit from the ads’ mere presence due to them helping fund the operation and maintenance of the website they are browsing. Of course, there are valid reasons for the bad reputation behind pop-up ads. To put it bluntly, they are viewed almost universally as irritating. In a study conducted by researchers Thorson and Rogers, the reasoning behind this is that they disrupt the so-called “flow of work” wherein people aiming to complete a goal will see them as nothing but obstacles standing in the way to that goal (Sharma et. al, 2011).

Now:

            In the past, I would have to search for a majority of the videos that I wanted to watch on YouTube manually. Today is another story, however. Even though I have not subscribed to a single YouTuber as of now, I regularly get videos recommended to me that are topically similar to what I usually watch, such as chiptune music videos or tool-assisted speedruns of both old and new games. One may be wondering how this works. The answer is rather simple: information gathering. Even if I haven’t clicked on any advertisements supplied by YouTube, the company pays close attention to what videos I watch on my account and even the cookies stored in the web browser if an account isn’t being used to provide video recommendations accordingly. The same concept applies to general online advertising; when an Internet browser clicks on an online advertisement and supplies them with a seemingly innocuous fact about themselves, such as what products they prefer or one of their favorite hobbies, they bestow upon the ad’s owner information they can use to tailor future advertisements to their tastes. This information gathering can be beneficial to both parties, but all too often the websites and their advertisements can collect information on their viewers more intrusively and actively than they would prefer (Advertising 2013).

This is not the kind of spam I am talking about. At least this spam is technically usable.

            By revealing some of one’s information to these companies, they open the door not only for different selections of advertisements and custom-tailored search results, but also a wide range of unsavory advertising practices. All it takes is purchasing an item from them with a credit card or by sharing your contact information; once that exchange takes place, one can quickly find themselves a target of junk mail, junk faxes, and junk phone calls, all of which only serve to advertise their product and potentially syphon more funds away from you. Simply asking the senders to stop is not likely going to work, but thankfully there are organizations like the Direct Marketing Association that exist to help people escape from these telephone and mailing lists. These practices have only gotten more intrusive with time. The “cookies” I mentioned earlier can make Internet browsing easier by remembering your passwords and search preferences, yet they can also keep track of information like purchases, what elements of the website are clicked on, and how long one spends on a webpage. Something that is a little more concerning is how you do not need to do anything aside from exist to be put onto these lists; a company only needs to purchase a list of e-mails and start dumping spam, or unsolicited electronic advertising, into them (Advertising 2013). I thankfully have not suffered from too many problems with spam during my time spent on the Internet, and I can thank my avoidance of advertisements and clickbait for that.

Later:

            Pop-up advertisements are irritating. Spam and junk messages received due to the willing or unwilling relinquishment of information can be just as irritating, if not more so. There is one final practice of advertising and gaining money through online sources that is even more unethical than the other two methods combined, however: adware and other malicious software. As the name implies, adware is software that is installed onto the victim’s computer, often without telling them, that then tries to make it easier to advertise to the victim. This can range from flooding the screen with pop-up advertisements that can ultimately slow the system down to gathering much more information than the average Internet browser would be comfortable with giving away, both of which having it mastermind the operations from the background. Adware is most commonly found bundled with freeware, or software that one can download for no cost (Subrahmanyam et. al, 2007). These freeware bundles will sometimes ask the player if they want to install the adware along with the software, but it is more likely for the installer to not ask for consent. Young computer users are particularly susceptible of falling prey to these programs due to factors like ignorance and naivety (Subrahmanyam et. al, 2007).

Better hope that you have the funds needed to "save" your files, or else you can kiss them goodbye!

            The real reason why I brought this up is the variety of programs that are even worse than adware. When compared with malicious software, or malware, adware looks like an annoying puppy barking for attention. Malware exists to do many things, such as extort money from its victims or compromise the safety of their online accounts. I have more experience than I care to have with the former. Back before I owned a computer of my own, I had to share the family computer with my father. One day, an aptly named ransomware virus called CryptoWall managed to infect our system through a seemingly innocent work-related PDF. While we were still unaware of its presence, it quickly worked to encrypt single file on the computer. Once the task was finished, the computer crashed and rebooted to our desktop. Aside from its usual contents, there was a new program that told us that every last file on our computer was encrypted and could only be salvaged if we forwarded a rather sizable sum of money to the culprits behind the attack. My father tried to fix it on his own, but it quickly became clear that it was a lost cause. We managed to wipe the computer clean, but in the process literally every last file, image, and program we had was gone. There were a few important facts to glean from this, the first of which being that this was intended for my father’s workplace and if it succeeded they would have been forced to shell out the ransom in order to resume operation. The second is that the viciousness of malware is only worsening with time. CryptoWall was released in 2014 and has been updated at least three times since then; in other words, something this potentially devastating was released a scant 3 years ago (Abrams, 2014). Who knows what hackers will be capable of in the future? At the very least, I can see them taking it a step further and flat out destroying a computer system from the inside if the ransom is not paid.

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