nasty surprise at AltaVista

[Barbara A. Bishop]

Shirl,

I tried your search and did not get any pop up box, just an ad at the
bottom of the screen, for Microsoft Office 97.   Went to advanced form,
typed in Boolean expression.
Could you say exactly where on the screen the popup appeared?  I teach
Internet searching so am always interested in what is going on with search
engines, results, etc.   Thanks.  

While I am not "grossed out" by this advertising business, I find it
annoying and sometimes offensive, even more so when it is poorly matched
with the search.  I guess it's the price we pay for "free" stuff.  The
annoying part is the subliminal suggestion it plants that women only buy
things like feminine hygiene products and the like.  This is no different,
imho, than seeing these ads on TV or in a magazine.  If ads are going to be
popped up, it would be nice to see a car or computer ad pop up in your
example!

I was hoping to duplicate your results and then check "men and purchasing
power!"  Maybe an ad for Gold Bond jock itch powder pops up!



At 01:34 PM 6/13/98 -0700, Shirl Kennedy wrote:
>Aaaagh!
>
>Just popped over to AltaVista to do a quick search in response to a help-me
>message posted on another mailing list (and to distract myself from the
>noise of the plumber at work on my bathtub drain...on the weekend, at the
>higher "emergency" rates).  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?
>
>Has anyone else seen an instance of this in response to other search terms
>at AltaVista?
>
>Does this mean I now need to disable JavaScript before searching on
>AltaVista?
>
>Am I being overly sensitive to be grossed out by this?
>
>Shirl Kennedy
>Internet Waves columnist
>Information Today
>Best Bet Internet
>http://www.ala.org/editions/openstacks/bestbet/index.html
>
>
>
>