Ads for Ringtones

[Phillip Dampier]

One of the side effects of being in the Google Adsense program is that advertisements for the forum are selected automatically based on the content on the page on which the ad appears.  We have no involvement in selecting the advertisements that appear.  For sometime now, most people will have seen advertising for ringtones based on Brokeback Mountain.  While the concept sounds good, I have honestly been unimpressed with the terms and conditions most of these kinds of vendors apply to their customers.  In addition to opening the door to phone text spam (and e-mail spam), a lot of specifics about the vendor and their fees are often missing.  I don't want people stumbling their way into dubious customer agreements -and- have to deal with phone text spam which can cost people money, so I am going to begin using Google's ad block feature to get rid of some of this type of advertising (it's based on the vendor's domain name so I have to apply these manually).

I appreciate people considering the products and services on offer around here, but as someone who has done consumer reporting for many years now, I am not comfortable with simply allowing caveat emptor be the rule of the road here.  I can't guarantee to eliminate every dubious thing I see pop up, but egregious ads will not be welcomed here.

[Brown Eyes]

This is a really interesting subject Phillip. 

I've noticed that the two main types of ads tend to be either the ringtones or singles/dating ads (which sometimes can be sort of amusing and some can be a bit cringe-worthy).  I remember a while back there was a flashing pink ad with some images of a woman in stilettos crouched down that was, frankly, a little hard to deal with on the computer at work (because the pink combined with the flashing was so glaring). 

And, we had a discussion once somewhere about what the "Michelle Williams" ringtone really means... and if it could possibly relate to some of Alma's classic lines from BBM.  It was pretty funny.

I'm always amazed at how specific some of the ads can be in relation to the content being discussed.  A while back in the 1000 Posters Club, we were talking about window air conditioners, and like clockwork, ads for air conditioners started appearing.

One thing I do find difficult, is the proximity of the ads to the scrolling bar... it always feels like it would be too easy for a hand to slip and to click on an ad by accident.  I'm actually surprised at how rarely that happens for me.