The Woes Of Wilfred (Hijack Ware)

Member Name: fruitcake

Product:	Hijack Ware
Date:	25/08/01 (316 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Targeted advertising, provided that those targeted are AWARE of what’s going on, and willing to agree to it.

Disadvantages: Targeted advertising employing devious data collecting tactics and legalised theft of the work of others.

Once upon a time, there was a man known only as Wilfred, (largely because that was his name). Wilfred was a man of drive, a man of ambition, a man at the cutting edge of the thong (and never was an edge more cutting…). His vibrating knicker business had really taken off - to the point where he’d decided to produce a website, thereby spreading the word further. Being only a one-man outfit, Wilfred had to abandon valuable production time in order to write his own copy, take pictures, and generally knock the whole thing together. Many man-hours later, www.buzzingbriefs.com was launched onto a grateful surfing population. But why was no-one buying?

With orders nowhere near the dizzying heights he was hoping for, Wilfred installed a file-sharing utility called ‘KaZaA’, in the hope of spending those enforced hours of non-productivity adding mp3’s to his collection. Anxious that the eyes of his young children were not exposed to his first choice, a particularly unpleasant file (gazza_fog_on_tyne.mp3), Wilfred quickly opened another browser window to give his website the once-over.

But wait – what was this? At each occurrence, the word ‘knickers’ had been highlighted in lurid yellow, and clicking on the hyperlink that it had become, Wilfred found himself whisked away to www.pulsatingpants.com . Yes, that’s right, he’d just spent all that time creating an advertising vehicle for his biggest competitor.

Further investigation revealed that Wilfred (along with millions of other users worldwide) had unwittingly installed Top Text (bundled with KaZaA), a program that turns keywords on web pages into hyperlinks. These take users directly to another site, the owners of which have paid the software manufacturers for the privilege of ‘owning’ said keywords.

Wilfred hurried back to his workshop. He had to take action. He had to cut costs. The edges of his thongs became less cut
ting, the vibrations became less good, and, marketed as ‘All New And Improved!’ the vibrating knickers became more costlier.

In spite of all his very best efforts, times were hard in the Wilfred household. Mrs Wilfred, tiring of the effort involved in producing nutritious meals from half-finished camiknickers and odd lengths of elastic, searched the ‘net for a source of cheap on-line groceries. She had to register with a lot of sites along the way, but it didn’t matter. She’d downloaded a helpful program called ‘Gator’, which not only filled out all the forms for her, but remembered all her passwords too.

Sadly for her, she never got the chance to see www.fillyertrolleykeepyerlolly.com (it had already gone to the wall, because Top Text had sold several keywords to a competitor), but www.ravingatthesavings.com seemed to meet all her requirements.

Oh, but look! Over on the ravingatthesavings site, gator had kindly popped up with a little window which indicated a very special offer on at www.lineourpocketsnotyerbelly.com . Soon after, ravingatthesavings mysteriously bit the dust too…

Completely bankrupt both by the unfair advantage gained by his underhand underwear competitors, and Mrs Wilfred’s unfortunate ‘Tomatoes – buy eight lorry-loads, get one can FREE!’ error, Wilfred now raises his family in a pillar box somewhere near Scunthorpe, where he also struggles to get an up-and-coming ketchup empire off the ground.

A sad tale indeed, and though admittedly rather dramatic, one which raises some points worth pondering. Sites with something to sell are not going to be the only victims of the software outlined above. Sites with no more than a message to offer will suffer too – the people who collect the revenue from such as Gator or Top Text will think nothing of diverting their traffic to a commercial site with another message completely at odds with
the first.

Gator doesn’t just obligingly drum up those pop-up windows from nowhere, either. It’s no accident that they correspond with the interests of the user; that information has been collated by keeping tabs on every web page the user has visited since installation – a shocking breach of privacy.

“Oh, but the user *invited* us into his system”, claim the software manufacturers in their defence. I can’t believe that millions of users willingly allow these people to perform their insidious activities from within their machines, and I don’t honestly believe that the manufacturers do either. Why else would they bundle their software in the shadow of more appealing programs (Top Text and KaZaA, Gator and GoZilla)? If the user truly demanded these features, the software that supported them would be quite capable of standing alone.

In my view, these companies are nothing more than thieves – thieves of words, and of information that was never willingly given – and the advertisers that use them, however much they are willing to pay, accessories to the crime. I find it outrageous that such a situation should exist and still be called legal, and I’d like to thank TheKnight for helping to bring it to the attention of a wider audience. I’d also like to repeat (without his permission, though favours of a physical nature will be offered to make amends if necessary…) a few links that he drummed up elsewhere. These provide far more insight into the issue than I ever could.

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6797640.h tml?tag=tp_pr
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/01/0 8-toptext.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c /a/2001/07/30/BU231339.DTL
http://www.scumware.com/

Perhaps it doesn’t bother you to think that an anti-drink/drive site could be put together for the ultimate benefit of an on-line off-license, perhaps youR
17;re not troubled by the thought that potential converts to a cause close to your heart could be diverted from your favourite site by an on-line bookstore with clout and the intention to sell literature supporting a view you’d never take. It’s your choice – but wish Wilfred luck with the ketchup venture, won’t you?

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