Have we been asking for it?
When you take home a wage doesn't it feel like everyone seems to be queuing up to take your hard earned from you? Whether it's the tax-man, insurance companies that sell you a policy but don't want to pay out when you claim, or the financial companies that sell you products (like endownment polices) then write to you to say that they'll be unable to payout enough to cover your investments because they've invested in shares then watched the prices go down the toilet, but yet can still give their senior management humungous bonuses or pay rises!
The vultures just see the internet as another tool that can help to relieve you of your cash.
We've all contributed to attracting this attention by shopping on line.
Spammers have known for years that they can send out millions of mails at the press of a key, and that even if less than one percent result in a sale, the numbers are big enough to make this a profitable endeavour.
These guys are just providing a more sophisticated way of delivering spam, that doesn't clog up your in box, and that hopes to raise the percentages of mails that returns in a sale.
I for one refuse to purchase goods from companies that resort to such tactics.
If everyone did this then this would not be happening as there would be no profit in it for them.
I queried my ISP (Virgin media) about this and got the standard BS reply about improving the internet experience and avoiding phishing before getting on to the real purpose of this system, which is to target adds.
I for one am fairly happy with my internet experience.
I avoid phishing by completely ignoring all emails that come from banks, building societies and paypal, whether genuine or not.
I fail to see how inserting adverts that I will never dream of purchasing anything from improves my internet experience.
Let's make this a loss making enterprise for everyone involved. Boycott all online advertising. Maybe then we can turn the net into the resource that it should be.
Mines the one with the empty wallet in the pocket!