Gaia gets ads from KNOWN -malware distributors-

[Flying Dicks]

UPDATE: People are still getting malware from Gaia's ads, and I was asked to bring this back.. so I am.

Of your ad companies, one does not have a privacy policy, four are rated by Web of Trust as dangerous and one's rating is falling due to distributing malware. I am concerned because you are using companies that have been communally flagged as UNSAFE and you are telling us you can't control the ads.. you can't control it.. report it.. etc.. And yet you could control it if you just chose more trustworthy ad servers.

Privacy policy with list of ad servers
I will now link the web of trust scorecards for each dangerous site so people can see what YOU are giving them through ads.
TrafficMarketplace, interestingly, the link to their privacy policy says the page is nonexistant. This site has improved, but formerly had some bad ratings and has tags indicating this.
CasaleMedia
Tribal Fusion
EuroClick
Burst Media < this site has improved, but please note the warnings for malware and viruses
Google malware report
Summary of the current Google report

Quote:

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 10 time(s) over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 1228 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 9 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-11-30, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2009-11-26.

Note many of these pages have alerts for spyware and adware, and some actually distribute viruses or worse.

What is my feedback?
First, stop lying to us. You claim you can't control the ads, while using known virus distributing ad servers. That is just stupid for reasons I should not need to point out.

Second, get better ad servers and for Lanzer's sake get RID of the ones that are rated as dangerous.

Third, update your links since TrafficMarketplace and Yahoo's privacy policies have moved and it is your obligation to provide us with these documents reliably.

I hope everyone clicks these links and sees through the crap that we've been fed about not knowing what the problem is with ads, when over a third of your ad servers are rated by a trusted company as dangerous.
Read the privacy policy. Gaia gives your information to known malware distributors.
Your own rating is falling due to this, Gaia. Do you want people to be warned away whenever they load a Gaia page? That's where you're headed.

EDIT:
I've realized this may come off as rough and I don't mean it to be, honestly, but it gets it's point across how it is so.. eh. I just hope gaia reads and takes this advice, since they were asking for help finding the source of the ad problems a while ago.

EDIT2:
To all those coming at this argument as if I have some issue with Google, I DO NOT. Google is NOT rated as dangerous and Google is NOT the only place Gaia gets it's ads. You can see this if you click the privacy policy link. They obtain ads from more than one company, and some of those ENTIRE COMPANIES are rated as dangerous. That is my point. Stop beating the Google horse, its dead, rotting, and stinking to high heaven.

[Fierce Hot Mess v2]

Ad servers? I thought those were just websites with those "free" offers. They're ad servers too?

I thought Gaia got their ads from Google. I'll continue to think that until I'm proven otherwise.

What proof do you have that Gaia CAN control the ads? IF they could, why would they have a sticky to report the inappropriate ones?

[[ .NK. ]]

Fierce Hot Mess v2

Ad servers? I thought those were just websites with those "free" offers. They're ad servers too?

I thought Gaia got their ads from Google. I'll continue to think that until I'm proven otherwise.

What proof do you have that Gaia CAN control the ads? IF they could, why would they have a sticky to report the inappropriate ones?

She's not saying that Gaia can control their ads. But they should be able to control their ad services. And with ad services with rankings like these, something really needs to be done.

[O.T.L.]

Fierce Hot Mess v2

I thought Gaia got their ads from Google. I'll continue to think that until I'm proven otherwise.

Read the Privacy Notice for Gaia; about halfway down, there's a section titled "Third-party Advertisers, Links to Other Sites" which details what ad servers Gaia uses.

I think one of Gaia's own pages should be proof enough, no?

[Fierce Hot Mess v2]

O.T.L.

Fierce Hot Mess v2

I thought Gaia got their ads from Google. I'll continue to think that until I'm proven otherwise.

Read the Privacy Notice for Gaia; about halfway down, there's a section titled "Third-party Advertisers, Links to Other Sites" which details what ad servers Gaia uses.

I think one of Gaia's own pages should be proof enough, no?

I was partially correct. I will admit I was uninformed however.

Yes, if Gaia does get their ads from these places, they need to cease immediately.

[Flying Dicks]

Fierce Hot Mess v2

O.T.L.

Fierce Hot Mess v2

I thought Gaia got their ads from Google. I'll continue to think that until I'm proven otherwise.

Read the Privacy Notice for Gaia; about halfway down, there's a section titled "Third-party Advertisers, Links to Other Sites" which details what ad servers Gaia uses.

I think one of Gaia's own pages should be proof enough, no?

I was partially correct. I will admit I was uninformed however.

Yes, if Gaia does get their ads from these places, they need to cease immediately.

Unfortunately they do seem to get ads from there- Before I blocked ads from Gaia I would frequently get tracking cookies and other adware/malware sourced from those ads. Others have gotten malware from Gaia, and redirections- Note that some of the sites are flagged for those things. Gaia is catching flak for it, and they claim they can't control it, but at some point you should use common sense.. and this is one of those points.

[Sokta]

Thank you for providing this information.

I remember seeing threads of posters claiming they got viruses and malware from Gaia. And though they were usually mocked and scorned, I now know that it -is- from Gaia.

I'm going to go update my anti-virus information right now. And install AdBlocker until I know that Gaia has removed these untrustworthy ad companies.

Gaia's own Web of Trust page has fallen because of these sites, I think. (Gaia's Score.) It's not much now, but it's more than it should be.

I agree that this should be dealt with.

[Flying Dicks]

Yeah, It sucks that gaia's rating is falling due to this but if they choose to ignore the issue then perhaps it is justified.

[Satuo]

Every time I've ever gotten spyware it was from CasaleMedia and Tribalfusion.

What kind of choices does Gaia have in terms of advertising servers? I find it difficult to believe they would willingly choose servers with such a low reputation.

[.~[Misty.Muffin]~.]

They buy in bulk. :/

[Leonal]

It almost physically hurts me to agree with you, but I have to agree.
It makes me sad when my anti-virus stuff brings up a warning when I'm surfing Gaia, but five times in as many minutes just pisses me off.
And while I'm not sure if these are part of the problem that you describe, if I get one of those god-damned redirecting ads one more time, I'll invent a program that lets me punch people through the internet, and test it out on whoever didn't do their research when it comes to these ad companies.

[GreyMetaru]

I was a bit doubtful about the malware from the ads until yesterday when my browser reported this..
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5724/wthwarning.png
(Linked due to image size)

Hopefully Gaia can get rid of the bad ads fairly soon, until then best thing we can do is keep up to date with Antivirus software. confused

[Satuo]

GreyMetaru

I was a bit doubtful about the malware from the ads until yesterday when my browser reported this..
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5724/wthwarning.png
(Linked due to image size)

Hopefully Gaia can get rid of the bad ads fairly soon, until then best thing we can do is keep up to date with Antivirus software. confused

hitreap?

Sounds like a bandwidth exploiter...

[Flying Dicks]

.~Misty.Muffin~.

They buy in bulk. :/

They buy in bulk FROM these companies. They choose to buy from these companies, they dont get them all in a pack. They have to buy from each ad vendor. They obviously didnt research their choices, but I have, and I think they should change their ad vendors.

[GreyMetaru]

Melgara Satuo

GreyMetaru

I was a bit doubtful about the malware from the ads until yesterday when my browser reported this..
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5724/wthwarning.png
(Linked due to image size)

Hopefully Gaia can get rid of the bad ads fairly soon, until then best thing we can do is keep up to date with Antivirus software. confused

hitreap?

Sounds like a bandwidth exploiter...

Not sure, here's Google's diagnostic for the site though.
http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=hitreap.com/