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Beware of the Internet Advertising
Pirates!
When
I realized about a week ago that I was
going to be writing an article on this
subject, I had no idea of the events
that were about to occur that would
completely transform what I would be
writing about... First
of all, I'd like to update you on a
subject I wrote about two years ago.
There are companies out there purporting
to sell you the exclusive rights to
keyword search terms on the Internet.
About two weeks ago I was once again
contacted by one of these companies
telling me that they could have my Web
site come up in the top position on all
the major search engines. And to the
uninitiated person, this often sounds
like it could be a great deal, too. But
what these companies often avoid telling
you is that you have to install their
special software patch in order to
produce these search engine results on
your own computer. Keep
in mind that 99.99% of all Internet
surfers will not be installing this
patch on their own computers, and you'll
begin to get the picture. You'll
be seeing your Web site come up in the
top positions, but nobody else will see
the same thing on their own computers.
So any advertising dollars you spend in
buying the exclusive use of any real
estate keyword search terms will be a
complete waste of your money. And, in
summary, this is like paying someone who
promises to get you on television and
then they hand you a video of yourself
to pop into your VCR to fulfill their
end of the deal. As
the plot thickens here, two days ago I
was preparing to write this article and
something bizarre happened to me. I
began noticing that my Internet Explorer
browser both looked different and was
behaving differently than it was before.
For one thing it now had an additional
window in it to type in keywords for
Internet searches. This was very strange
as I often do keyword searches directly
into the browser window itself which
then takes me to the search engine
results on the MSN search engine. So for
me to continue to do Internet searches
like this, no additional new window for
keyword searches would have been
necessary. Second,
my Internet searches were now being
hijacked and taken to a search engine
I'd never heard of, where people were
paying money to advertise their Web
sites in the top search engine positions
there. And
third, my computer began feeding me a
barrage of popup ads at an unbelievably
feverish pace whenever I would activate
my Internet Explorer browser and begin
surfing the Internet. What
I recognized was happening was, despite
the award-winning protection of my
firewall software, someone from a remote
location was able to install files on my
computer's hard drive without me knowing
about it. And the files that were
installed were completely changing the
results of my Web searches in order to
serve the interests of that company's
advertisers. Needless to say, I was both
stunned and appalled at what I was
witnessing. So
I then downloaded and launched a
different browser and did a Google
search under the term "spyware
test." After reading several
reviews of the products available there
I opted to take a free scanning test of
my hard drive with the Aluria Spyware
Eliminator software. And in the process
of doing so I found that I had 148 files
containing spyware and advertising
software on my hard drive! I
simply had no idea that all these files
were on my hard drive relaying my
surfing habits to third party companies,
influencing my searching results, and
causing targeted popup ads to appear on
my screen according to my Web surfing
habits. So once I found out about this
it was a no-brainer for me to then
purchase the $30.00 software product to
get all of these files off of my hard
drive. (You can do the same free spyware
scan of your own hard drive by visiting www.AluriaSoftware.com.
But the irony here along with what I'm
talking about is you'll need to download
their free software in order to do
it!) Fast
forwarding now to your current business
as a real estate agent, your computer is
definitely one of your most valuable
tools. If your data is ever corrupted,
or if there are problems with your hard
drive, it could end up costing you a lot
of money in both lost time and
information. So you need to do
everything you can to make sure that
third parties are not interfering with
the information you're storing on your
hard drive. What concerns me greatly
here is that if I could have 148 spyware
files on my computer without even
knowing it, what could potentially
happen to my hard drive if people began
installing much more dangerous files
onto it? For those people who know what
they're doing, this can be accomplished
through our Web browsers whenever we're
surfing the Internet. And it can be done
without us even knowing that it's
happening. As
a result of this experience, I've now
changed my Web browser from Microsoft
Internet Explorer to the Mozilla Firefox
browser (www.Mozilla.com).
I absolutely love Microsoft and its
products, but because their software
products are utilized by the greatest
number of people worldwide, these
products are often the number one target
of hackers, too. (if you're a hacker and
you want to inflict the greatest amount
of chaos worldwide, doesn't it make
sense to target the software programs
that are being utilized by the greatest
number of people?) So in recognizing
there's no major reason why I have to
continue utilizing the Microsoft browser
other than it's become a habit, I'm
opting for what I perceive to be a
higher level of security with a lesser
known browser instead. (In checking my
own Web site statistics, Microsoft
Internet Explorer is utilized by 70% of
the people who visit my Web site, while
the Mozilla Firefox browser is utilized
by only 15% of my visitors. As a result,
I'm sure the hackers would see more
value in targeting the browser that's
utilized by a far greater number of
people.) So
you can see that while my original
intention in writing this article was to
warn you about people promising you top
search engine results through installing
their software, the irony here is that
one company's version of this software
was covertly installed on my computer
before I even sat down to write the
article! So
if anyone contacts you and offers to
sell you the exclusive rights to
keywords on the Internet, or promises
you the number one position in search
engine results for your Web site, you're
most likely dealing with what I would
consider to be a scam. In this
situation, ask the person you're talking
to if their service requires you to
install any software on your computer in
order to make it work. And if it does,
your best move will probably be to hang
up the phone as quickly as possible! 
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