After the Internet bubble burst, he even built a site that let people download computer cursors in the form of waving flags; the trick was that they also downloaded software that would monitor their Internet movements and show them pop-up ads.
I read this news article yestereday, which the above quote is from. The guy, Chris DeWolfe, that owns the domain of MySpace, used to be a not-so-nice guy on this Information Super Highway we have here. Just as that quote says, DeWolfe used to make pop-up ads that track movements online. I have seen the same sort of banner on MySpace that is ‘Click here to get this cursor.’ Is this the same sort of thing as before?
To me, it would be an ample oppurtunity to get some ad-ware into people’s systems. Why? Because I am guessing that a majority of MySpace users are female teens. Seeing as my sister, and other females my age and younger, like things because they are ‘pretty.’ This beautifying factor could almost be undoubtably translated to the computer. I bet if you would as my sister if she would like that boring arrow cursor changed into a dancing ballerenia, or a ballet shoe, she would say yes. Ok, maybe not today, but a few years ago.
Technorati Tags: MySpace, ad-ware, spy-ware, internet, cursors
MySpace definitely sucks in a lot of ways. But I guess it has some benefits. Just don’t ask me to list what those are right now since I’m starving and can barely string a sentence together. Heck, it took me ages just to type in this comment correctly!
Lol Nicole, that’s great. I hoped this got more attention:(
Well, when you said some people might not like it, I thought this blog with be a furious rant or something!
…those cursors and smiley faces for email are the oldest tricks in the book! Well, those and that horrific Gator thing. And the old-school Bonsai Buddy!
When I first saw that someone named Nicole had commented on this blog, I was like “Have I read this already?” Guess there is more than one person with the name Nicole, huh?
lol, hey Nicole J, I actually know you
. Nah, just be bashing myspace…a few people I know are die-hards. Boy Bonsai was going to be cool, but the wrong peoplee got a hold of it…
Little tired eh?
Umm..yes is bad.Very bad.
In fact,so bad that yesterday or the day before i have deleted my account.
LOL, why did you do that?…wait I think I already know what you are going to say…
I did it because myspace is crap.Starting with their system ,design and all the annoying adds.Then there are the privacy issues and that stupid cookie.Then you’ve got those guy’s dark history and so on…Too many young people under 18 and cults….perverts and liars.
I joined because i had few friends from swydm.4 of them.Great people in every way.But i can e-mail them.
By deleting a myspace account,you can only do yourself a great favor.
Is that what you think you knew i will answer?
Is not the addiction though.
I have 2 addictions that i can’t really quit..but i can quit everything else.
What about their system? I say that their server is pretty damn good. I think I have only got “this domain domain doesn’t exsist” like a handful of times and have been on myspace over a year. Considering they get a few million hits a day, that’s impressive…what about the design? color scheme? Layout? The advertisements aren’t too bad in my opinion…The maximum I have seen on a page is 2 or three. I know blogs and news sites that have that many in the story plus in headers/footers and sidebars.
My guess was something about security/privacy issues…
Sorry Ryan,but what seems ok to you,is not ok to me.
And i wasn’t talking about servers.I was talking about the whole thing.
Then what do you mean then? The overal idea?
What did you mean by cults in #6? How on earth did you find them? I browsed, not specifically for cults, a decent amount, and never had one just come up. I am not saying that there isn’t a group or several for like the KKK and ELF. They have their right to do that, same as the gay groups….now if they were messaging you saying join us, that’s different. The chances of them targeting/finding you is so small, it can’t be worried about in my opinion. If they do, report it?
Ryan…let’s drop this subject.
I left and so it stays.
Would you like a msn messenger 8 beta live invite?
I have few and i thought i should share first with my friends.
Lemme know.You’ve got my e-mail.
I have msn 8 live already, thanks.
Ok.Then i’ll carry on to others.
wow, Ryan this is pretty interesting, we’ll just have to see though how many ads you send me. j/k anyway, I don’t really see why you are down on myspace. could you find where you got your info? thanks
how would I send ads? That doesn’t even make sense to me. Did you not read post? I wrote “I read this article…” and this article is a link to a NYTimes article. That is where most of my information came from, as my post states.
I really don’t c all the fuss about myspace. i personally think it’s fun. & it’s not like u can’t b safe. u can make ur profile private & u control who ur friends are. my preacher has preaching about it, & yeah there r some people on there that r doing crazy stuff but that shouldn’t mean that us careful ones can’t get on it.
I Agree With KAyla B i don’t see a problem with myspace unless u r not mentally able to be secure…..i notice that in the previous comments it was said that myspace is bad but i saw no major backup for those satments just because u can’t make frineds doesn’t mean a sites bad!! and most likely u comp can’t hadle myspace thats why “the system sucks”
Whoa this is old, but I have a Myspace account and it was fun until people really started to overread things and started taking things too seriously, I mean people would actually get disappointed cause they wasnt in my top eight, or a girl would get mad cause I commented a girls picture and told her that she was pretty, people fowarding messages that you wrote, its too “High School” for me, and the only big reason I wouldnt delete my profile because I had a sister that lives in South Carolina, Brother in-law that lives in Mississippi, and a best friend that lives in Germany cause of the military, The design is great, I can get used to the adds on the side, and the privacy features are what you make them, I always hear people say that myspace.com is a bad place, I think we must remember that it is the USER that makes any website bad.
Some things I think about myspace is the fact that it’s like an open door for someone to interfere with your life. I’ve seen my own friends have relationship problems with their girlfriends or wives because of having other girls or in the girls part of having other guys on their profiles and they keep in touch once in a while. It’s like high school all over again. Maybe it’s the city I live in. Drama and nosey people who gossip 24/7 make about 60% of the problem. I think that myspace keeps about 85% of it going. I use it for avertising and keeping in touch with long distant family members here and out of America. Does this make any kind of sense to some situations where you live.
myspace is great!!!!!!!!!
myspace fukking rocks!
Your just geeks that dont get ne attension on it! ha
I think myspace is a place for people to hack into your account and have access to your email etc and can monitor your movements and see who you talked with on myspace. Or even read your email have access to pin numbers passwords etc.
Myspace is a place with no privacy and it is getting worse.
You know that when you go to the front page? Then if you accidently put in the wrong password it clicks over to another log in site? Well that is a fake log in page that page is for someone who sees your account email password the whole works.
If you want your privacy? Donot go into Myspace. Those asses will somehow look you up and harrass you and phone your home etc. Find out where you live etc.
myspace is unnatural..in my honest oppinion!!! why? because through out all the ages has ordinary man and woman had the ability to have such a wide platform to so many people..are we all prohets..are we politcians? or celebrities? that we have such a large inner cicrle of “freinds”….I Somettime see profiles with like 2000 freinds or more….Think of the word DESTINY!!
I love myspace it rocks out loud [lol] my screen name is XXhollisterX95 at aol or aim peace out
i think that if you are careful you shouldnt worry about people hacking thier accounts. i have a myspace, and i absolutely love it. i am addicted to myspace. {dont have many addictons, just myspace, oreos, and singing.}
and i dont htink that myspace is all that bad, i m not saying that myspace is flawless, because it isnt perfect, but it is a place where you can talk to your friends and family, and just be yourself. and you can control who sees your site. you can put it on private, and only add the people that you think need to see it.
so, you can control your odds of having your myspace hacked.
So i think my space isnt bad unles you make it. if you are careful who you add, its not a big deal. and if your profile is on private you really shouldnt worry about it. Just be careful of the fake login pages. and make sure you know who all your friends are. [:
Would it destroy my life
well, myspace isnt horrible. infact i have one myself. even though im too young. i love it andd all but i know there are dangers. my parents hear all these bad things, and suspect its horrible. what are some good things? what are some bad? does anyone know lots of bad ones?
Tracy- Out of everything I have read about MySpace, overall it’s a pretty fun social networking website that millions of people use. There are known cases for perverts pretending to be younger, becoming friends with young children (around 16 or under), then slowly get their personal information and go to their house; although I do believe MySpace can be safe for kids if they allow it to be. Be aware that anyone can view your page if it isn’t private: predator or friend. If you post your full name, and/or town name, phone number, or any other personal information, anyone can find you. There are websites out there that can locate the area in which a phone number comes from. So, be careful of what you say on your MySpace account.
There is also danger with downloading cookies, bugs, and viruses from MySpace if you click on the wrong buttons. Never trust the “Free Cursor” links or “Free Backgrounds”. Just about all of it is a scam, and if you download these things, some of the cookies or viruses are capable of placing a spy-cam inside your computer, monitoring everything you do or see on the internet. It’s very possible, so be aware. I once made the mistake of downloading free cursors, and my computer was acting up, such as randomly showing me pop-ups when the internet wasn’t even open. I reset my computer, and everything went back to normal.
Be cautious of what you do on MySpace!
I deleted my account simply because it was a big waste of my time. My addiction was getting out of control and I spent almost all of my time sending messages, reading bulletins, posting bulletins, reading blogs, reading my idiotic school boards, waiting for people to get online, learning html to make my profile the best, and basically doing nothing important and my grades dropped significantly. I was very disrespectful to my parents and I didn’t do any of my chores. If I want to contact my friends from other states/countries I’ll talk to them through email, phones, or letters.
Sometimes I think about all of those wasted hours on myspace that I could have spent on something productive like reading and learning. Maybe myspace works out for you but for people with addictive tendencies like me, you’d probably want to stay away from it.
Well first of all im not really shure if myspace is bad or good. But there are some ways that its kinda good & bad at the same time. Like im not disagreeing that there arent crazy people out there doing weird stuff. But then its a fun experience..
I couldn’t agree more!
I found this cuz i am asking myself the same question of is myspace good or bad, but now I have my answer, I think myspace is bad, people can get into your computer and send you things such as viruses, key logs, pop ups, and other things,
I was told that myspace was bad but I didnt see anything wrong with it. besides the pop ups and viruses and stuff it was very addicting, i would spend alot of time waiting for 1 of my friends to log on so I could talk to them, My grades dropped and i was sometimes rude to my brother if he was bothering me while i was reading my messages or sending messages. the more people that join it the more myspace grows,
also I had an issue with things such as gossip and fighting, 2 of my friends kept fighting on myspace and writing bulletins about it and bringing others into it, i spent alot of my time on myspace.
there are alot of bad people on myspace such as hackers, child melesters, criminals, ect.
the more myspace grows the worst it is going to get, so people having a myspace account is helping it grow.
Even If you aren’t using myspace for the wrong reason you are still supporting it,
so I would have to say yes, myspace is bad and I’m not going back to it
I’ve heard that in Myspace, people put really really bad things on it.
this is old…but oh well.
i think myspace is bad. my older sister was ALWAYS on xanga, or myspace or face book. she still is. she stays up late talking to friends,emailing them and AIMing them and listening to her i pod. she gets really upset if i bother her and even at our parents. she has a problem when waking up and her grades get really low. whenever our parents try to talk to her, she just tries to zone them out. it makes her forgetful:she sleeps with her contacts, she doenst take off her make up. she can get real –mean… and some times she swears at me and punches me, or kicks me or flicks me on my head, and ….but i guess im used to it. i dont think she even notices her bad attitude. she even eats alone in her room. she says shes doing homework, but shes really sleeping or on line. she never lets me see what shes doing, when i enter the room, she exits the page.if she is nice, its probably because she is comforting me by talking bad about someone else….weird, huh?
I was on Myspace when it first came out. I noticed something very evil about it and canceld my account.
I think other Christians would know what I’m talking about.
There is a certain vibe you get when you see people just falling in love with themselves. Talking about themselves in 3rd person. “Hey, guess what Aaron did last weekend” Get it? Pretty much making thier page allow you to see the little girl and boy in them. Those of us that are 18 and over know we are Adults now. Is this what our children will be doing as adults? My thought is that Myspace is Destroying the time we need to heal from our daily problems. To tell you the truth, I think Myspace destroyed some of my friendships. when Myspace came along I noticed a huge change in my friends. they pretty much said screw hangin out. well with me at least. I think they found the people they thought were cool, and love it when people think they are cool too. They just loved brodcasting thier problems to other people after they saw all the problems our celebraties have been having. (That’s my guess). Yeah, write your problems on Myspace, and see if they ever go away. I totally diss aprove
wow alot of you aren’t very bright are you…
theres basically no way for you to get “hacked” unless you click on a link that goes to an external site that reads your cookie and steals your password… or unless you go to a url thats not really myspace.. like http://www.myyspace.com or something
and if someone even had the ability to crack that hashing and figure out your password froms cratch, which is so hard since its not open source, why would they pick you?
also i think myspace is about the stupidest thing ever invented and the features/layout is really lacking.
myspace is the worst thing to have ever come out
I’m going to be blunt here. MySpace is worthless.
Seriously. What can you do on it that you can’t accomplish through email/message boards? Nothing.
Nowadays, everyone has a MySpace. People on this very page have admitted they are “addicted” to it. Why? Why are you addicted to MySpace?
The answer is simple: teenagers need to “fit in” or whatever. They think by having a MySpace, they’re “cool”. Let me fill all who may read this page in on a little secret: having two thousand people you don’t even know as your “friends” isn’t cool. It’s just stupid.
How about all of you little kids who think TyPIng LyKe tHiS makes you “l33t” go to school and learn something? How about all the adults who post pointless crud get a job?
I may be fourteen, but I have never had a page on MySpace, and I will never have one. Instant messaging and email is adequate for me. Why not you?
Well from what i read here, it is pretty obviouse that this arguement is based purely around opinion. The fact is that it is very dangerous but on the other hand is fun if you know what you are doing. So really this argument is going nowhere. A common example of how silly some people are is how LiL stacie said “my screen name is XXhollisterX95 at aol or aim ” haha that’s just the typical type of silly person who is trying to get themselves hacked or cyber stalked.
I think Myspace is an helpful way to talk to friend than emailing each other which takes almost 5 minute to recive one stupid message.Plus since some people have a Mac laptop, yahoo, Hotmail, gmail, ect. doesn’t let them sent picture.Although there are some bad things about it, like there can be stalker. It ok if you put it pritve though (that the whole point of the privte mode)
I say if you HATE Myspace then don’t make one or delete your account cause this is my opinion, you an belive me or don’t I am just saying.
I only give out my Myspace to people I know.
xoxo,
Lucy T.
i believe myspace is quite addicting.i came here to see if theres something more to it.like a hidden more deeper meaning to itt.what is tom winning with such a site?does it benefit him in any way?and i’ve been a member for a while now and its pretty safe.now for all of the flaunters of personal information…u basiclly screwed.
hey man my space is the devil….. and what i mean by the devil….. is that devil spelled backwards is lived…. alll my space does is suck the life out of people. sure u post pic, of what things u have been doing but where is the life at?. you are life. go and live it… not behind a coumpter.
Myspace has good and bad aspects. Everybody has recognised it. Personally i feel the negative outweighs the good for most of us. Especially people with a lack of computer knowledge. The problem is that nobody is educated in online privacy; and we’re finding that kids in their teens are posting extremely personal information that compromises their safety. For example ive seen people put in stuff like their full name, name of school, sporting team name, date of birth, description and photos, names and links to people who know them, pets and emails, EVEN HOME ADDRESSES. I know this because.. well my girlfriend has done this. Its not because shes stupid. She simply just has the forms box pop up and (like everyone else it seems) feels compelled to fill in everything. Ofcourse it is then shown to the public because they are unaware that unless you make it “private” everyone can see it. But then again, what is the point of having a myspace if its private? It defeats the purpose of having it for friends only, since friends that are WORTH KEEPING IN CONTACT WITH will already know everything anyway. Without myspace you will be more compelled to ring them up and arrange a meet. I see myspace as a part of degrading relationships, and yes i agree with what another poster wrote. They can trash couple relationships due to the jealousy of millions of ex boyfriends still posting hot steamy comments on your girls account.
Who agrees?
I agree so much with SkyGuy. I never wanted a MySpace account, but then some friends started bugging me about it so I did. At first it was okay, but then people started acting like that’s the ONLY way they could contact you. Not to mention privacy issues. I keep going back and forth with a public or private profile because they both seem useless. I have a job where some personal information is out there anyway, but why make it easier for those looking for trouble? Also there are people from my past who I do NOT want contacting me and MySpace just swings the door wide open for them. And I feel MySpace is only good for single people. I’ve seen lots of relationships destroyed by it. I think I’m going to delete my account right now.
myspace isn’t bad it’s just addicting because of all the people you talk to.
well i have had myspace for more then a yr and i love it.. i have gotten in contact with friends from high school that i had lost contact with.. and that is a big plus for me… i have never had issues with the program or myspace itself.. yes i know that myspace is not for everyone so if u dont like it then dont create a profile and stop talking ur shit…
Our church is going viral over this thing, and no one seems to understand how dangerous it is. The Youth Pastor talks about it, so it must be the best thing since sliced bread huh? He allowed his wife to put pictures of his sons on it… how many of you know how patient perverted pedophiles can be waiting for just the right information to pop up? Our pastor has spoken to me on more than one occasion in the past about spending too much time on the computer and now her son is telling everyone to get on MySpace and communicate with friends, INSTEAD of telling them to go have coffee, meet face to face, etc. In this brand new age of “ME” “MY” “I” I can only see destruction in this thing. I see it as a virus and it needs to be innoculated.