Some safeguards

Citation

Andrew, A.M. (2000), "Some safeguards", Kybernetes, Vol. 29 No. 9/10. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2000.06729iag.011

Some safeguards

Some safeguards

Users are warned that the payment is for time spent actively surfing the Net and therefore potentially receptive to advertisers' messages in the Viewbar. It is claimed that the software can detect a cessation of user activity and will correspondingly cease to tick up credits, and that it is proof against automatic schemes designed to give a false impression of user activity.

Another possible abuse of the system, against which potential users are also warned, is "spamming" to collect a large number of recommendees, or new customers. The term refers to the generation of large amounts of unsolicited e-mail or "spam". The administrators of AllAdvantage threaten expulsion from the scheme for anyone attempting to benefit from spamming, though they welcome its promotion through notices on Web sites and in appendages to e-mail sent for other purposes. I hope my informant Davie is not in trouble for spamming, or if he is that my appreciative comments here will provide some degree of extenuation. The term "netiquette" is used to indicate proper behaviour within the Internet, with spamming as a prime transgression.

Like Davie, I found the Viewbar to be not particularly obtrusive while working, despite a good deal of animation meant to catch the eye. It provides "buttons" that can be clicked to transfer to other sites for more information from advertisers, or to activate a search engine. It can be discontinued at any time and then reinstated at will, of course with no ticking-up of credits during the time it is in abeyance.

A minor hiccup in setting up the scheme arose because the Viewbar would only appear when the screen resolution was sufficient to accommodate it. I had previously worked with resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, which had to be stepped up (in an appropriate "Control Panel") to 1,024 x 768. This has the disadvantage of making print and other details on the screen somewhat smaller, but the compensating advantage of ensuring that Web pages are viewed as a whole without the need to shift them to see the edges.

The special software operates with remarkably little apparent interference with the main browser software. When the latter is closed down, there is sometimes an extra screen query as to whether the additional software is to be disconnected also. A rather more irritating aspect is that, after disconnection and while the computer is being used in some other way, the panel inviting connection spontaneously appears and reappears several times despite cancellation. This can be avoided by turning off the viewbar display at the same time as the system is disconnected from the Internet.