Is CNN.com using a black hat tactic?

[JosephtheGreat]

I was examining the source code for the index page of CNN.com and found this:

//Checks for google in query string - if 'google', no popunder, else, launch popunder
function check_for_google(variable) {
var query = window.location.search.substring(1);
var vars = query.split("&");
for (var i=0;i<vars.length;i++) {
var pair = vars[i].split("=");
if (pair[0] == variable) {
return pair[1];
}
}
//alert('Query Variable ' + variable + ' not found');
}

referrer = check_for_google("ref");
if(referrer == "google"){
//alert("yep");
}


else{
//alert("nope");
cnnad_createAd("565468","http://ads.cnn.com/html.ng/site=cnn&cnn_pagetype=main&cnn_position=1x1_bot&cnn_rollup=homepage&params.styles=fs","1","1");

}

This seems kind of fishy to me. :rolleyes: But would it be considered a sneaky tactic or acceptable?

[peth]

Did you visit the site from a adwords ad?

Because if you did, then its against TOS, to have a popunder, on the page the ad links to, thats whats within the source html - "if 'google', no popunder, else, launch popunder"

If think this must be the case with this, but still a little dodgy. ;)

[thevenerablez]

Why, may I ask, were you reading source code? For fun?

[thevenerablez]

Sometimes I write stories in comments so people who read source code for fun can get some literature.

[Raisin]

You can get away with that stuff when you're one of the big boys.

[EGS]

Yes that's against Google's TOS. You should report it, IMO.

[check]

wow, nice find. 'Guess the world isn't fair? If I did something like that, i'd be banned within the next hour

[torunforever]

Yes that's against Google's TOS. You should report it, IMO.

Which TOS are you talking about? I'm not clear on what Google service any of you are claiming CNN actually takes part in.

AdSense? I can't find any AdSense ads anywhere at the site.

AdWords? Why would CNN need to run an AdWords campaign?

If they're not participating in either other those, then CNN doesn't need to abide by any Google TOS.

[Raisin]

Which TOS are you talking about? I'm not clear on what Google service any of you are claiming CNN actually takes part in.

AdSense? I can't find any AdSense ads anywhere at the site.

AdWords? Why would CNN need to run an AdWords campaign?

If they're not participating in either other those, then CNN doesn't need to abide by any Google TOS.

I didn't look at CNNs site before I posted. Now that I have, all I can find are yahoo ads. I was thinking google might have some agreement with CNN not to show popunders to visitors, but that's not true. I used a link from google news to go to cnn.com and it tried to open a popunder.

[Riboflavin]

How is this against google TOS at all. It checks to see if the user came from google (or adwords) and if they did, it doesn't show them the popup.

If anything, its keeping them compliant with the TOS.

[JosephtheGreat]

Why, may I ask, were you reading source code? For fun?

Yes, for fun, and to see if I could pick up some "tricks". No pun intended.... :D