When I came to this forum, a window pop up with a chat box, a live dialtoneinternet sales person offering chat about their stuff. We certainly don't want to have any business with this company, due to their mean attitude and bad service. (see previous post (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11728) )

Anyone knows of any privacy issues because of such intrusive marketing methods.

1) does DI know who (username, IP) is logged in?

IP possibly, if they are constantly watching stats. Username, No, if you are just browsing there site, unless you logged in somewhere on there site, but unless you are a wholesaler I dont know where you would log in on there site.

2) is there a way to disable this kind of intrusive marketing?

If its a java window, just turn off java on your browser.

Its annoying yes, but if it raises issues of privacy or not, I cant comment on because I dont know what they are useing for the chat system... But I do agree there marketing tactics are very aggressive.

Web Master 2,

Are you talking about this forum (WebHostingTalk) or Dialtone's forum??

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing as SoftWareRevue, are you talking about a popup here? or at DIs site?

A popup here would be quite distressing indeed:eek2:

I don't know if they have one.

May be they can grab IPs from the ad banner log, just a guess.

You mean a popup like LiveHelper or something similar; not like ICQ?
Just trying to understand just what happened.
Maybe you just bumped their banner and everybody got confused.

Web Master 2 undoubtedly had a Dialtone Internet window open in addition to WHT. I get those pop-up chat windows sometimes when I'm looking around the Dialtone site.

yes I've had them on Dialtones site - it must lose them loads of business because I guess I'm not alone in clicking the 'x' top right on both the pop-up and the browser frame :D but I ain't losing sleep over Dialtone losing business

shorty

You probably clicked the dialtone banner (possibly accidently) and it came from there.

I'm sure it wasn't directly from WHT.

hmmm.. i just reloaded the main page 3times.. but i dint get any pop -up... has anyone else seen it?

Originally posted by kunal
hmmm.. i just reloaded the main page 3times.. but i dint get any pop -up... has anyone else seen it?

I have seen it. I posted about this problem before because it also happens at my site. This is a very serious problem and is as bad or worse as Microsofts Smart Tags. People are illegally advertising on other peoples sites.
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=13597

I still havent figured out what triggers the pop up as it does not happen all the time, I was able to make it happen on WHT by setting the date on my computer ahead by a month.

Here is a snapshot of a pop up on Web Hosting Talk, this happened right after a reboot and I had no other browser open and did not visit any other site:
http://www.peakhost.com/wht.jpg

i don't know why people find it obtrusive .... i think it's a great CRM application. dialtone uses a java applet which launches if you stay on one of their pages for a certain time (i think its over 1 or 2 minutes).

it's possible that when a person is sitting at one page, he/she might have some questions or may want to get in touch. i give dialtone 5/5 for this useful app.

check out http://www.realtimeaide.com for a similar application, its like humanclick and other such services. i think every webhost should have something like this ... it gives visitors a more confident feeling knowing live persons are monitoring the site and servers.

just my 2 cents...

my 2c: :puke:

Steve 33 - I'm guessing you have Gator installed right? Gator itself adds these pop-ups. It's not under WHT control at all. They're under fire from webmasters just like ezula TopText and Surf+

Originally posted by jnestor
Steve 33 - I'm guessing you have Gator installed right? Gator itself adds these pop-ups. It's not under WHT control at all. They're under fire from webmasters just like ezula TopText and Surf+

No, I don't have Gator, but I did figure out what is behind this.

I downloaded and installed Bearshare a few months ago. There is a hidden program that also gets installed without your knowledge, it is called Savenow, it installs in c:\program files\savenow\savenow.exe. This program is basically spyware that runs without you knowing it. It is able to determine what type of site you are on and shows pop up ads of related sites.
From what I've been reading it is just not Bearshare that does this but there are many other programs that install similar hidden programs.

Don't know if I should; but I have to tell you of a program I use.
winpatrol keeps track and notifies you everytime a new program, or cookies, or about anything new is added to your computer. ;)

they are not using any spyware program. they are just using groopz.

DialTone uses eZula for advertising :angry:

Domingo