Shame on you Straight Dope! What you're doing is illegal!

Shot_From_Guns · December 7, 2010, 5:25pm

It’s certainly not like they’ve had any reason to reconsider their ad providers because of unscrupulous practices or poor security before. How does that saying go? Hrm, it’s got “fool me” in it somewhere, I just know it…

Like Rubicon said they wouldn’t send you any more malware?

VinylTurnip · December 7, 2010, 6:05pm

I think that’s already being used by our sister site, the Gay Drugs Message Board.

Ed_Zotti · December 7, 2010, 6:26pm

There seems to be a belief that there is a virtuous group of ad providers out there serving up 100% malware-free ads, and that if we dumped the doofuses we currently use and signed up with these hypothetical class acts, our troubles would be over. For example, it’s been suggested we use Google instead of Rubicon. Couple problems with this. First, we use Google AND Rubicon, and for all we’ve been able to conclusively establish (investigation continues), the latest efflorescence of malware was brought to us courtesy of Google. Second, Google is hardly impervious to malware, as a few seconds of searching will make plain. I have no reason to think some different mix of ad providers would be better than the ones we have now.

Two different situations. Interclick started this goofy research program of theirs; Interclick can (and did) stop it. Rubicon doesn’t have a malware department that sends us bad ads; rather, wiseguys every so often figure out ways to slip bad ads through Rubicon’s malware filters. If I start to get the idea Rubicon is careless or incompetent, I’ll recommend to management that we reconsider our relationship. So far I’m not getting that impression. They’ve been responsive to our complaints and appear to be diligently looking into the info we’ve sent them, including logs provided by a loyal member of the Teeming Millions.

Please understand that even if we manage to squelch this particular annoyance, our malware problems aren’t permanently over. That’d be like a cop promising you there’ll be no more crime. I’m not happy that we get hit by malware sometimes, but it’s naive to think there’s a silver bullet cure that will make it go away.

Sailboat · December 7, 2010, 6:30pm

Except, of course, crime by werewolves.

Una_Persson · December 7, 2010, 6:37pm

Thanks for the quick update, Ed.

Shot_From_Guns · December 7, 2010, 6:58pm

You are having a *level *of problems that no other major board has, to the best of my knowledge.

You have people who’ve been saying forever that they’re drooling for merch (good merch, not hideous nerd shirts) or some other way to support the site such as donations or enhanced memberships. You’ve had people who’ve offered examples of other sites that support themselves through merch and doing their own advertising.

If you ***start ***to get the idea that they’re careless or incompetent? How many malware report threads have we had now, with how many individual reports in them? Are you just going to keep pushing the bar higher? Will you, right now, put a concrete number or time frame on further outbreaks that will classify Rubicon as “careless or incompetent”?

I appreciate that you guys are between an unenviably shitty rock and hard place, but let’s not pretend that this malware is in any way typical of other communities with a similar profile (i.e., not porn).

Shot_From_Guns · December 7, 2010, 7:08pm

If you are seriously interested in other options for generating revenue for this board, please use the resources of the people who post here. For example, I used to moderate for one of the largest communities on the internet (top 50 by number of posts, per big-boards.com), which supports a decently sized staff, hosts lots of content including streaming videos, etc. If you were interested, I could ask one of my friends on the staff there if someone there would be willing to discuss with a staff member here how they manage their merch and advertising.

Cat_Whisperer · December 7, 2010, 7:37pm

There’s no question that foreign commerce is involved; my membership alone that I buy every year involves foreign commerce.

Dewey_Finn · December 7, 2010, 7:43pm

On what basis do you say that no other major board is having problems at this level?

Shot_From_Guns · December 7, 2010, 7:55pm

Thus “to the best of my knowledge.” I’ve tried searching to find any other reports or complaints of constant malware that would rival ours and turned up zip. But if you think that other boards *are *having this problem, by all means please start fighting my ignorance with links.

ETA: For example, a search for Rubicon malware turns up exactly two links in the first few pages of results that are complaining about infected communities; both of those links are to threads on this board.

Ed_Zotti · December 7, 2010, 8:09pm

With all respect, you’re the person making the remarkable claim, and it’s up to you to provide the proof. If you google “malware advertising” you’ll find numerous articles such as this one indicating a widespread problem. The idea that the SDMB alone is the target of malicious advertising is just silly.

ETA: Are you seriously suggesting that if “Rubicon malware” turned up lots of hits, you would feel BETTER about our relationship with this company? This is pretzel logic.

Shot_From_Guns · December 7, 2010, 8:35pm

If you re-read what I wrote, I’m not saying that the SDMB is the *only *website hit by malvertising. I am saying that the SDMB is the only community being hit by *this much *of it, this consistently. Other than things that I’m sure you wouldn’t like to be in the same bucket as, like porn sites. ISTM that the other sites like the ones in the article you linked fixed their problems.

Where are the other communities with people *constantly *complaining about how much malware is in the ads? We have had multiple waves. I ask you again: are you willing to, right now, draw a *concrete *line as to what you will consider to be too much?

No, I’d feel just as bad about your relationship with the company. I would feel better about your claims that you have *no choice but to maintain the relationship *with the company if there were proof that other sites were having the same predicament–i.e., no choice but to constantly dump malware on their users to stay alive.

Shot_From_Guns · December 7, 2010, 8:40pm

Seriously, can you show me any threads from 4chan, Something Awful, Christian Forums, Gamefaqs, TFN, etc. with people complaining repeatedly over a period of months about malware in the advertising? Not just blanket articles about the existence of malvertising–actual evidence that other communities that need advertising revenue to survive have no choice but to force malware on their users to keep the forums running.

Ed_Zotti · December 7, 2010, 8:51pm

What are you talking about? The last outbreak of malware we had before this was in August. The current one started in mid-November and has been unusually persistent, but we think we’ve got a handle on this “checkwinonline” thing - I hope to have good news to report soon. Be that as it may, given that we have close to 1 million unique visitors a month and 7 million page views, we get remarkably few complaints. We do have a lot of people such as yourself who complain, but smoke is not directly proportional to fire.

Shot_From_Guns · December 7, 2010, 9:32pm

Here are results from a search in ATMB for malware. I stopped before the threads that haven’t been active since about a year ago. FWIW, the first time I tried this, it froze my browser, I had so many tabs open.

I ask you again: if you don’t think this is a big deal, can you put a solid number on how many more infected users or outbreaks you will consider acceptable before you would consider that Rubicon can’t or won’t screen their ads to keep your users safe?

I ask you again: if this is such a common problem, can you show me even one other site that depends on ad revenue that has had repeated waves of complaints from its users?

Ed_Zotti · December 7, 2010, 11:14pm

Thanks for proving my point. As I said, we have a current malware issue, we had one in August, and we had one before that in May. (The password problem in June was caused when a Rubicon tech person left a switch in the wrong position after doing some maintenance, which was perhaps a little sloppy, but the only person around here who never makes mistakes is Cecil.) We had a somewhat greater number of complaints at the beginning of the year, but we had a bit of discussion internally and as you can see things have gotten better. Over the past seven months we’ve had three outbreaks. You think this is horrible. I look at the charts and see that during that stretch we served up 46 million page views to 4.4 million unique visitors, and I also see reports like this one in the Wall Street Journal saying malware advertising this past summer increased 250%. So I think we’re doing reasonably well.

In any case, your suggestions about what we could do improve things are impractical. Let’s review:

You seem to think we should dump Rubicon and get a better provider. But as you yourself have shown, there are virtually no online reports linking Rubicon with malware other than posts on this site. Meanwhile, the reports I’ve linked to suggest that other well known providers such as Google and Yahoo are malware magnets. A logical person might deduce from this that (a) Rubicon is a pretty good provider, but (b) somehow they are letting stuff slip through to the SDMB. Therefore, (c) the SDMB should talk to Rubicon about trying to solve this problem. This is, in fact, what I’m now doing, and have been doing since September. They’ve pulled the plug on some ads during this latest outbreak and problem reports have diminished, although it would be premature to say the issue has been resolved. I hope to have more news on this soon.
Your other suggestion seems to be that if we dumped Rubicon we could make up the lost revenue by selling T-shirts and whatnot. Merchandise sales have never been a big moneymaker for us, even when we had lots of new books and fresh merchandise to sell. Under the rosiest projections merchandise profit would account for maybe 2 percent of site revenue. I know people think you can make piles of money with CafePress or whatever, but they’re talking about boards run out of somebody’s basement. Please believe me when I tell you this isn’t a viable solution for us.
Your idea of proof that we are uniquely at fault is to cite a handful of boards that don’t have threads about malware. This is what’s called anecdotal evidence. What do you think it’s supposed to prove? Do you think the media outlets who report increasing malware all over the Web are lying? You have this fixed notion that we are screwups who don’t know what we’re doing. I can’t seem to get you off the dime on that belief and it’s looking to me like it’s fruitless to argue. Thank you for the opportunity to engage in this discussion and I hope you enjoy your time here at the Straight Dope.

ColdPhoenix · December 8, 2010, 8:41am

Yeah, I’ve been noticing this for a while. I started a thread on it before but was dismissed:

It’s so obvious. I go to Dell and look at their XPS range. Then I go to the dope and the adverts are for Dell XPSs. This morning I looks at Virgin media packages and the adverts at the top for of the dope me are for Virgin media packages.

Both of the above are adverts from Dell or Virgin but it works for smaller companies too with google adverts. Last week I was looking for a Tripp Trapp baby seat and the advert was for google Tripp Trapp searches.

ColdPhoenix · December 8, 2010, 8:46am

I remember reading somewhere that while it is illegal in most of Europe it’s fine in the UK. I just find it a bit invasive.

Don’t know about the US legality.

bucketybuck · December 8, 2010, 9:28am

Didnt you hear, she used to be a mod on one of the biggest boards on the internet? I’m sure I heard that somewhere?

VinylTurnip · December 8, 2010, 2:45pm

I just hope she wasn’t Editor-in-Chief of Yahoo! Answers.