IMPORTANT UPDATE

ContextWeb, one of the ad services I use on this site, believes they have solved this problem. So it is very important that you alert me if you get "Facebinked" from now on. For more information, keep reading...




I've been getting reports that one of the ad services I use has been delivering an ad that hijacks the reader's browser, presenting a full-screen ad along with one of those "are you sure you want to leave" boxes that require the user to click a Yes or No.

Please accept my apologies for this. I don't condone that type of advertising, and I take measures to ensure that it's not a part of reading Evil Inc.

What to do if you're attacked by an ad

(1) Don't click on it!

(2) Take a screengrab of your browser window.

(3) Collect as much information as you can -- recent browser history, time, browser type, page URL, etc.

(4) If you use Firebug or Fiddler, please collect the page script information along with as much additional information as you can.

(5) Force-quit your browser window. Don't click anything ad-related.

(6) Please contact me with all of this information.

Why does this happen?

Delivering a daily webcomic means partnering with ad services that deliver ads to the site. It's part of how I earn enough money to continue working on the comic.

In doing so, I can choose to opt out of certain types of advertising. For example, I choose not to display pop-ups or pop-under ads. I try very hard to achieve a happy medium... running enough advertising to keep the site profitable without ruining the reading experience.

Although I had previously blocked the offending domain (facebinks.com) from both of the ad servers I use, it has continued to surface. I have written both ad services voicing my dissatisfaction over that. And I am going to continue to monitor this until the ads disappear completely.

Please note that the advertising falsely implies that this is an exclusive offer that Evil Inc is extending to its readers. It even (incorrectly) uses a registered-trademark symbol (®) along with the URL. For the record, "Evil Inc" is a registered trademark, but the domain evil-comic.com is not.

In the meantime, please accept my apologies for the offending advertising, and know that I am working very hard to see to it that it doesn't happen again.