Phorm/Webwise and robots.txt - Suggestions & feature requests -- webmaster-related only, please

Message from discussion Phorm/Webwise and robots.txt

ShoreTel

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More options May 14, 5:36 am

From: ShoreTel

Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 12:36:22 -0700 (PDT)

Local: Wed, May 14 2008 5:36 am

Subject: Re: Phorm/Webwise and robots.txt

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> Perhaps as they collect information on my browsing habits they
> also spider the site maybe to find content to match the ads to.

They don't even need to spider those sites (they wouldn't get past
password protected sites that way). If they are able to insert
<script> tags directly into the datastream to your computer, that
means they can read the page as it travels over the network to your
computer. How do you think it figured out where the </html> tag was to
begin with?

On May 13, 4:28 am, webado wrote:

> I had a spat with nebuad a while back when my ISP suddenly started
> adding scripts to some pages served to me (and probably to others of
> their users).
> At the time the scripts weren't doing anything that I could tell
> (unless they were collecting information only), they were only visible
> in the source code, added after the </html> tag. Perhaps they needed
> yet to be activated from the nebuad end. I only found out by accident
> when viewing my source code, I forget why I was looking at it. The
> validator never pointed the invalid code out, simply because it was
> never getting the script tacked on.

> I complained to my ISP, they denied it, but changed my fixed IP to a
> new one. It stopped. Hmm...
> Reading up on nebuad's methods I was appalled that the only way to
> stop it from happening was to set a blocking cookie on my pc - while
> we all know cookies don't persist for very long. So there was no real
> acceptable way to stop it for good, except actively blocking nebuad's
> domain and subdomain in the hosts file.

> I believe it's still happening on and off on my connection but I've
> not managed to put my finger on it yet. It might even be a different
> but similar ad server site.

> I don't think it was in any way tied in to the website I was accessing
> though, at least not robotically. It was tied in to my IP address and
> my browsing habits. The script was being added to the site I was
> visiting most often at the time (what I was working on). Perhaps as
> they collect information on my browsing habits they also spider the
> site maybe to find content to match the ads to. I don't know. This
> never got off the ground as far as I can tell.

> But it's a worrisome prospect when ISP's opt in to such gimmicks.
> Despicable. And if the scripts being added also contain a malware
> element this is absolutely criminal.

> On May 13, 5:10 am, jelv wrote:

> > I've raised a similar concern about Phorm here:http://groups.google.co.uk/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Tools/browse_t...

> > Any chance of someone from Google responding?

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