TalkBack and a Request

TalkBack Article #1, on the topic of Internet Advertising is now online. The link to it is on the front page – have a read and let us know what you think (the email address is [email protected]). This is the first article and so all constructive criticism gratefully accepted to help us ensure that TalkBack becomes a high quality and interesting addition to the site!

The next issue I am hestitant to bring up, I feel like i’m bringing a box of dynamite up to a raging fire. I’m going to do it anyway and hope that people can understand what words like ‘suggest’ and ‘request’ mean 🙂

At Atomic Systems we do not recommend the use of Comet Cursor on diaries. There, i’ve come right out and said it. Does this mean you can’t? No it doesn’t. Does it mean we’re going to be grumpy at you? No, it doesn’t. Can someone cause you problems if they complain to us about you using it? No, not at all. There’s no censorship issue here, there’s no freedom of speech issue, we’re not stopping anyone doing anything. (Geez I said one sentence and then followed it with a paragraph of notes and justifications hehehe).

Comet Cursor has many problems, these are all my personal opinion although many people share them with me.

Firstly, some of the cursors are just plain horrible. They don’t always reset after leaving the site either, some people tell me they have to reset their machine to get their cursor set back to something sensible. I have my machine set to scream at me if anything even breathes about installing on my machine so it doesn’t get a look-in, it’s still a pain to click “no” at the ‘do you want to install’ screen but I can live with it.

It’s so-called ‘Spy Ware’. This means that, and I’ve only heard and read about this from entirely unofficial sources, it is tracking everything you do, every site you visit while it is running – and this information is sent to their server. What they do with it I don’t know but something just doesn’t smell quite right about that kind of behaviour to me.

So we therefore extend our recommendation that if you are considering putting it on your web page, that you choose not to.

Matt.

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