nasty surprise at AltaVista

[Charles P. Hobbs]

On Sat, 13 Jun 1998, Shirl Kennedy wrote:

> Aaaagh!
> 
> Just popped over to AltaVista to do a quick search
[...]
>  Someone was looking for statistics on the
> purchasing power of women.  Used the advanced search form and typed in:
>  women and "purchasing power"
> 
> When the results came back, I was horrified to be confronted by a pop-up ad
> for Always "feminine hygeine products!  Tried the search again, just to
> verify what I had seen.  And there it was again, the dreaded "Always" pop-up
> ad!  I can only surmise that it appeared in response to the search term
> "women."
> 
> Is this something new?
> 

Not really. In using Altavista, I've noticed the following:
* typing the word "Vegas" is almost sure to give you a casino ad (real or
online casino)
* typing the word "car" will, similarily give you an auto ad
* typing the word "gay" will almost always give you a gay-related ad. I'm
sure this would happen for searches related to other groups as well, but I
haven't tried it. . .
> Does this mean I now need to disable JavaScript before searching on
> AltaVista?

I don't think Java/Javascript has anything to do with this, it's acting on
the search keywords you give it.
> 
> Am I being overly sensitive to be grossed out by this?
> 
By a feminine hygiene product ad? I don't know, some people are bothered
by them on tv, others don't mind them at all. I don't think seeing one on
Altavista would be any different. . . .