I’ve noticed more and more that I’ll see words underlined in yellow when reading news stories on the internet. When I put the cursor over the words, a small advertising blurb will show up, and clicking on the words will take you to another website. (For example, I was reading a news story in the Washington Post about commuting, and the words “works at home” were underlined. When the cursor is put over the words, a blurb reads "Charge.com: accept credit cards from your customers . . . etc.) Who does this - the owner of the website? Is this just another way to advertise? (BTW, I see by using preview that these words are underlined in this post too.)
This is called something like “iTags” and it’s the latest evil from Microsoft. Apparently, they’ve decided they’re allowed to advertise on everyone else’s property now. I believe there’s a way to turn it off in Internet Explorer, but I don’t remember how. (I don’t use IE, anyway.)
No, it’s not Microsoft. They didn’t add the iTags after the protests.
It’s probably eZula. It’s a pain in the ass to clean up, since if you uninstall the software, it automatically downloads a new copy as soon as you get on the Internet. You definitely need to disconnect to clean it.
Cleaning instructions are at http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/removeezula.htm
Your computer is infected with scumware.
It’s basically a Trojan Horse that comes with some commercial programs that adds advertizements into third party web pages as you view them - without the author’s consent.
Get yourself over to http://www.scumware.com/ to get your system cleaned out.