Wed Nov 03, 2004 2:51 am
1duckling1 wrote:I got one during tombola or coltzan(can't remember) for a viagra type product. I was kinda shocked that on neopets i would see something like that.
Holy moly, on Neopets?! Thats Insane.. TNT better do something about that >.> Poor little kids.
Wed Nov 03, 2004 5:19 am
HollyPop wrote:I think the ads must vary by country because I still only see the one for classmates.com and the hooked on phonics ones as the only outside ads.
It must, because my country is set to Antarctica and I only see Neopets ads.
Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:27 am
Remind me to set my country to Antarctica.
Honestly, this is getting insane. I knew nothing good would come of having banner ads on Neopets. Adam, do something about this now. There was no problem when we had one innocent button. Now Dohring (I assume this was influenced by him) is sticking spyware and pop-ups, along with irrelevant and sometimes inappropriate advertisements, into the mix. This is not what Neopets is about.
Honestly, this is getting insane. I knew nothing good would come of having banner ads on Neopets. Adam, do something about this now. There was no problem when we had one innocent button. Now Dohring (I assume this was influenced by him) is sticking spyware and pop-ups, along with irrelevant and sometimes inappropriate advertisements, into the mix. This is not what Neopets is about.
Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:29 am
Naniwai wrote:Remind me to set my country to Antarctica.
Honestly, this is getting insane. I knew nothing good would come of having banner ads on Neopets. Adam, do something about this now. There was no problem when we had one innocent button. Now Dohring (I assume this was influenced by him) is sticking spyware and pop-ups, along with irrelevant and sometimes inappropriate advertisements, into the mix. This is not what Neopets is about.
Don't blame Dohring for this. No one at Neopets intentionally put spyware and pop-ups into the ads. Adam's already said that if people experience these, they should take screenshots and he'll fix it.
Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:38 am
Moogum wrote:Naniwai wrote:Remind me to set my country to Antarctica.
Honestly, this is getting insane. I knew nothing good would come of having banner ads on Neopets. Adam, do something about this now. There was no problem when we had one innocent button. Now Dohring (I assume this was influenced by him) is sticking spyware and pop-ups, along with irrelevant and sometimes inappropriate advertisements, into the mix. This is not what Neopets is about.
Don't blame Dohring for this. No one at Neopets intentionally put spyware and pop-ups into the ads. Adam's already said that if people experience these, they should take screenshots and he'll fix it.
I blame Dohring for everything. It's not just the spyware. It's the banners themselves. And I'm sure those were his, or someone in his regime's, idea.
Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:43 am
Its strange cos I havent seen one single non neopets ad today and I saw a few the other day. Ive been on for about 2/3 hours now and changing pages constantly and not one non neo ad.....
Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:44 am
Well, my country is set to the USA, and I'm not really seeing any non-neopets ads either. I guess maybe I don't refresh/pay attention as much as others, but from what I remember, I don't think I've seen too many on mine. *shrug*
Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:56 am
Wow, ok ... I do not for one minute point a finger at Adam, Donna or any of the staff at Neopets. I am sure that they are not amused or pleased by any of this either. Yes, the "powers that be" probably made this decision for that awful (please take it away!) huge topbanner thing. It was a bad decision for many reasons, not the least of which are people either quittting or drastically cutting back the time they spend on the site because the ads are just plain annoying, they (like me and some others here) have physical limitations/problems/disabilities and things blinking and jumping around just set us off ... and there's the fact that no matter what's been done, they DO slow the site down ... Not everyone has high speed internet or a new, fast computer. We with older, slower computers and/or on dial up are already at a disadvantage.
Now, the tracking cookies that have been found in the "sponsor" ads. From my understanding by asking around, this is basically what I've found out (and please correct if I'm wrong or off base - I'm not a "techie" type of person). Whenever you go to a site with a banner ad there's usually one of 2 ways the sponsor pays the site for that ad - either by clicking the ad (think g-petz - they were not allowed on Neo because Google click thru ads had been put up to help pay for server upgrades - once the ads were removed that site was allowed - that's what I heard anyway).
The other way a site gets paid for these banner ads is by a third party tracking cookie. Like, all you have to do is simply go to a page that has a banner ad, no clicking needed; the network that's selling the ads/paying the site reads all those tracking cookies and that's how they know how many people are seeing them/sending the information/how much to pay the site. These networks also seem to go by geographic area re: what types of ads are circulated ... apparently they're not age appropriate ads, though they should be able to generate ads for a specific target audience. At least it seems to me.
I think? this may be the type of network that was chosen and I only think this because I never clicked on any of the outside banner ads - I have no idea if clicking on them would take you off the site. If that was the case, then there definitely should not be a need for those annoying adware cookies. It also defeats and kind of negates TNT's own T&C about no outside clickable links. And there's just no good reason for having clickable outside links on a site where there's children leading to who knows what.
IMHO, they should really just have the sidebar as it is with the re-arrangement of the links, have the small shockwave ad on the sidebar (as it was) and get rid of that big topbanner completely. There's really no need to have ads for the site on the site, especially in 2 places. There were sponsor ads in the small spot, why not just keep them there. Unobtrusive, much faster loading, easier to ignore if you wanted to and in general much less of a headache. Plus then our lookup banners could go where they belong!
BTW, I started seeing only Neopets ads yesterday ... and the shop of offers was taken down apparently. So, it kind of looks like everything's been pulled that is off-site or outside advertising. Go Adam!
Now, the tracking cookies that have been found in the "sponsor" ads. From my understanding by asking around, this is basically what I've found out (and please correct if I'm wrong or off base - I'm not a "techie" type of person). Whenever you go to a site with a banner ad there's usually one of 2 ways the sponsor pays the site for that ad - either by clicking the ad (think g-petz - they were not allowed on Neo because Google click thru ads had been put up to help pay for server upgrades - once the ads were removed that site was allowed - that's what I heard anyway).
The other way a site gets paid for these banner ads is by a third party tracking cookie. Like, all you have to do is simply go to a page that has a banner ad, no clicking needed; the network that's selling the ads/paying the site reads all those tracking cookies and that's how they know how many people are seeing them/sending the information/how much to pay the site. These networks also seem to go by geographic area re: what types of ads are circulated ... apparently they're not age appropriate ads, though they should be able to generate ads for a specific target audience. At least it seems to me.
I think? this may be the type of network that was chosen and I only think this because I never clicked on any of the outside banner ads - I have no idea if clicking on them would take you off the site. If that was the case, then there definitely should not be a need for those annoying adware cookies. It also defeats and kind of negates TNT's own T&C about no outside clickable links. And there's just no good reason for having clickable outside links on a site where there's children leading to who knows what.
IMHO, they should really just have the sidebar as it is with the re-arrangement of the links, have the small shockwave ad on the sidebar (as it was) and get rid of that big topbanner completely. There's really no need to have ads for the site on the site, especially in 2 places. There were sponsor ads in the small spot, why not just keep them there. Unobtrusive, much faster loading, easier to ignore if you wanted to and in general much less of a headache. Plus then our lookup banners could go where they belong!
BTW, I started seeing only Neopets ads yesterday ... and the shop of offers was taken down apparently. So, it kind of looks like everything's been pulled that is off-site or outside advertising. Go Adam!
Last edited by everconfused on Thu Nov 04, 2004 1:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thu Nov 04, 2004 1:40 am
everconfused wrote:BTW, I started seeing only Neopets ads yesterday ... and the shop of offers was taken down apparently. So, it kind of looks like everything's been pulled that is off-site or outside advertising. Go Adam!
Thanks Adam!
He did say he'd pull all the banner ads if they were found to be inserting pop-ups... but since there is no outside advertisement already, couldn't they just chuck the top banner completely.There is no use advertising your own site when people are already on it, and the side button works well to inform people of games and places to visit, etc.
Thu Nov 04, 2004 1:44 am
everconfused wrote:BTW, I started seeing only Neopets ads yesterday ... and the shop of offers was taken down apparently. So, it kind of looks like everything's been pulled that is off-site or outside advertising. Go Adam!
i know, me too. i was QUITE impressed and happy with adam's quick response here when he saw the posts, and the obvious concern he showed. i think it's wonderful that they still care, that they haven't become completely corporate. it restored some of the faith i had lost in TNT
Thu Nov 04, 2004 3:57 am
From the way some people phrase what they say about Dohring, they make him seem like Saddam O.o
Thu Nov 04, 2004 6:30 am
everconfused wrote:BTW, I started seeing only Neopets ads yesterday ... and the shop of offers was taken down apparently. So, it kind of looks like everything's been pulled that is off-site or outside advertising. Go Adam!
I wouldn't hold your breath... I just noticed a sponsor ad on the toolbar just now. So I'm pretty sure it was just a slight setback.
Thu Nov 04, 2004 6:41 am
OmniIcyshelf wrote:From the way some people phrase what they say about Dohring, they make him seem like Saddam O.o
Some people don't like him for his ermmm... religion. From what I've gathered, I think he's a Scientologist. I'm not gonna discuss it here, since I'm preeetttyy sure the monitors wouldn't be too happy. But just google his name, and you'll find out enough. I can't say whether Dohring is a good or bad guy, so I'm not gonna say anything bad or good about him.
Thu Nov 04, 2004 7:03 am
Uhhh...who's Dohring?
Thu Nov 04, 2004 7:06 am
br00ster- Dohring is the official owner of Neopets.com
He bought it from Adam and Donna some time ago, and for some reason, a lot of people carry resentment towards him.
Even so, he kept the site running in a sense, but many believe he is the casue of all these banner ads and junk. Me, I'm not too sure.
He bought it from Adam and Donna some time ago, and for some reason, a lot of people carry resentment towards him.
Even so, he kept the site running in a sense, but many believe he is the casue of all these banner ads and junk. Me, I'm not too sure.