Skimlinks trial on MSE forums

meher

Absolutely ^ such clauses are to make sure that you've shopped, looked for the terms and conditions before just copying and pasting th answer - it's more or less like you'd find stairs in shops They make you go round the shop in a full circle instead of just having the ascending and descending ones on the same side. They design it in such a way you have passed the entire floor before you find your way up or down to other levels.

this doubt mongering will prove to be a better feedback for skimlinks actually

Amilucky?

jdsaint wrote: »

The site mentioned above seems to suggest that they want visitors to go to their competition page though.

On their entry page (sorry can't link to it) it says..

which kind of puts a different slant on things.

Perhaps by trying to hide activity it'll be seen as more of a "negative" thing for compers than a "positive" one though?

maybe you should have read the full T&C's before posting

16.ONLY entries that have come from this page will count, entries from money saving forums, competition websites and so on will not count

so they are openly saying that they will delete entries from MSE and competition websites and they can only know if you have come from MSE or a competition website if you send them the referral link

jdsaint

maybe you should have read the full T&C's before posting

I did and in isolation it could be taken as you believe it to be.

However take it with the comment on their contact page and as I said the slant IMO changes enough to raise the point that perhaps it's not a problem as long as you go to the competition page rather than direct to entry page.

Only the site owner Knows for sure though.

Amilucky?

jdsaint wrote: »

I did and in isolation it could be taken as you believe it to be.

However take it with the comment on their contact page and as I said the slant IMO changes enough to raise the point that perhaps it's not a problem as long as you go to the competition page rather than direct to entry page.

Only the site owner Knows for sure though.

Most entrants from MSE and competition sites will view the comment on the competition page's T&C's in isolation as it is designed to deter entrants from MSE and competition sites

most seasoned compers read the T&C's of a competition before entering and when they read line 16 if they are from MSE or a competition site they will refrain from entering and will not read the comments that you quote on the entry page

in my opinion the site master has designed it this way because he doesn't like MSE and competition sites

Kronkston_2

Is this "skimmimg" the same method they use to steal money from your credit card?
I thought that was illegal.
What is Martin getting involved with that for?

Old_Wrinkly

No. It's the method you use to get stones to bounce across the surface of water ...

kermitfrog

Kronkston wrote: »

Is this "skimmimg" the same method they use to steal money from your credit card?
I thought that was illegal.
What is Martin getting involved with that for?

Because it's very profitable.

edgex

jamesd wrote: »

Some of us already are getting it from an MSE location, followed by links that look like this:

<a class="skimlinks" onclick="mugicPopWin(this); return false;" oncontextmenu="mugicRight(this)" href="http://www.ryman.co.uk/competition" target="_blank">www.ryman.co.uk/competition</a></font><br />

It's not always best to load from the main site for a variety of reasons, including that it can cause page loading to be slower. For example, in some page source that I see, the script is loaded as part of the head of a page.

There are two rules that cause this to potentially be slower:

1. The general http/1.1 specification that content from only two URLS per site should be downloaded at the same time. Easy to circumvent by using more than one site.
2. The script in this case is in the head part of the page, so the browser also has to wait until it's all downloaded before it can do the rest of the page display work. Sometimes this can be circumvented by putting the script at the bottom of the page instead of in the head.

Bottom of the page, not in the head part of the page, and loading from a different site can combine to improve page display speed. MSE Ian might already have considered this. Or not, I don't know. Or the differences for different people could be part of testing to gather statistics on which works best.

however, MSE is allowing/facilitating the downloading of a javascript file from a server they have no control over.
they then have no control over the file itself.

that is a security risk.

the virus/trojan/scammers already target adverts & advertising networks
this system, by having the js file hosted on servers elsewhere, is another target for them.

Amilucky?

edgex wrote: »

however, MSE is allowing/facilitating the downloading of a javascript file from a server they have no control over.
they then have no control over the file itself.

that is a security risk.

the virus/trojan/scammers already target adverts & advertising networks
this system, by having the js file hosted on servers elsewhere, is another target for them.

do you think the above also applies to Google Analytics which has in my opinion vast privacy concerns

I first found this site which displays Competitions Time group user activity
http://boardreader.com/fp/www_moneys...me_597926.html

and was then amazed to find this site which tracks every MSE's users activity
http://www.boardtracker.com/profile/3706/493519

informaton is being relayed via MSE to Google Analytics who then make the information openly available to numerous sites

the number at the end of the link is your member profile no/id the site displays user activity on a daily,weekly and monthly basis and shows it on a graph

the free version doesn't display much but quite worryingly there is a premium version which promises the following

Member Ego Network gives an insight into members' social activity and network, helping you understand who they interact with, how much and in what nature. Do they lead discussions or led by others? isolated, or have many friends? follow or lead within their own personal network? How much do their friends post and do they also communicate between themselves? Who are the dominant players in the network? and much more... Is this member an Opidion Leader? Greeter? Answer person? Question person? Initiator? Drive-by shooter? Networker? Maybe a spammer?

AuthorLines gives an insight into members posting activity over the past year, helping you understand who a member is? Do they post mainly in their own threads or in other people's? heavily discuss matters or post once and move on? post in many discussions or just few? post more now than in the past or have they left the board recently? Move beyond just understanding the post to fully understanding who is behind it... Together with Member Ego Network, you can quickly understand who members REALLY are!

from Wikipedia

Google Analytics is implemented by including what is known as a "page tag". This is referred to as the Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) and is a hidden snippet of JavaScript code that the user adds onto every page of his or her website. This code acts as a beacon, collecting private visitor data and sending it back to Google data collection servers for processing

Users can officially add up to 50 site profiles. Each profile generally corresponds to one website.

Privacy Issues

Google Analytics, due to its ubiquity, raises many privacy concerns. Whenever someone visits a website that uses Google Analytics, Google tracks that visit via the user's IP address. Because so many websites use Google Analytics, Google is able to track visitors across websites, theoretically giving Google a real-time view of the traffic on much of the web.

In addition, since Google also has personally identifiable information for more individuals than any other statistics service, there is a significant potential for abuse

.

furndire

You've been a busy Amilucky according to you id number - now we know big brother is watching us.