> In 2001 he was linked to a website, passthison.com, which utilized multiple-window launching to snag Web viewers, an advertising practice rarely seen outside of the online pornography industry.
It's funny how 2001 bad spyware practices used only on porn sites have been utilized by mainstream media sites via iOS/Android browser redirects in 2015.
I remember a long time ago regularly browsing a porn webmaster forum for ideas to use in regular sites. The porn sites were generally at the forefront of a lot of things, obviously not all questionable.
Well, porn sites figured out it was bad for business. The demographic targeted for these spam messages easily falls for the same tricks, but aren't getting any services in exchange; only a faceless company.
Credit card farmers don't really care about repeat business, same goes for the brain pill trial guys that people for some reason give their CC info willingly. If someone catches on, you just bring up another llc, rinse, and repeat.
No, we got popup blocking built into browsers about a decade ago. Similarly, intrusive advertising is driving flashblocking and indeed total ad-blocking.
(Currenltly struggling with the fact that Plume for Android is nice to use - except when ads bounce you out of the app without being clicked on, sometimes over and over again)
It's not exactly true for the article to say the technique was "rarely seen outside of the online pornography industry" when it was popularised by Geocities at a time when they were in the top 5 web properties...
> As of October 2003, Wallace was working as a DJ in New Hampshire, making weekly appearances at area nightclubs. Wallace performs under the name DJ MasterWeb.
Spam King by day, club DJ by night. With a cringey name, to boot.
Spamford Wallace! A blast from the past. I remember the epic Slashdot articles following the story of the vigilantes that hunted him down. He was easily one of the most-hated villains of the late 1990s Internet.
