Ulterior motives and misinformation

Why MSN is scrapping pop-ups, how Claranet upset some journalists, and much more

Oh, the jubilation! Microsoft's internet arm MSN has announced that it is to scrap the use of pop-up adverts on a number of its European home pages. And it's not just the pop-ups that are for the chop: pop-unders will also be barred from the firm's web portal.

Hallelujah! Apparently, years of research has resulted in the same conclusion conjured up by just a moment's common sense - that web surfers hate these annoyances.

MSN's approach is seemingly laudable and the world's media organisations have been quick to praise the initiative. But hold on a moment. Sooner than you can say 'hidden agenda', Backbiter has figured out Microsoft's true intentions.

The company has good reason to want to rid the portals of pop-up adverts, as it has discovered an even more infuriating way to vex visitors - so-called 'rich media' commercials.

Rather than relying on easily closed (not to mention software-blockable) pop-ups for its ad revenue, MSN is offering advertisers TV-style commercial slots.

These hog the middle of the browsing window for up to 30 seconds before the user can read the content obscured beneath. You can experience this horror yourself by clicking here.

Pop-ups were never this bad. Still, Microsoft's marketing people had most of the media fooled for a moment.

From MSN to misinformation, and the question: which highly respected internet service provider seems to have been misleading would-be customers with a promise of an email service unbounded by restrictions on attachment size? Enter industry veteran Claranet.

Backbiter can exclusively reveal that the company seems to have been leading subscribers up the garden path for some time.

The company's website boasts: "If you are sending an attachment and it is large, ensure that the person at the other end will be able to retrieve it.

"Some internet service providers impose a limit on the size of their customers' mailboxes and will not allow them to go over a certain size. This is not the case with Claranet customers."

Except that it is the case - and Claranet knows it. In fact, in common with many of its contemporaries, the firm imposes a limit of 50MB on received attachments.

Backbiter knows that at least two subscribers have been taken in by Claranet's assurance, only to discover that the service isn't as described, and therefore useless for their purposes.

The customers in question happened to be journalists and duly brought the problem to the company's (oh, and Backbiter's) attention, whereupon the firm promised to alter the service description at "the earliest opportunity". Backbiter is now tempted to label the firm Claranot.

Prompted by my lambasting last month of Coca-Cola's flat launch of its legal music downloads service, Mycokemusic, a Stateside reader informs me that our American cousins are bubbling with excitement over an Itunes-related promotion run by rival drinks seller Pepsi.

No sooner had the buy-a-bottle-for-a-free-song giveaway begun, than canny Itunes users were applying a nifty hack to download dance, jazz and rock without paying for Pepsi's pop.

For once, though, it's not fancy-but-flawed web technology that's let the side down, but good old-fashioned stupidity. Why, many Itunes devotees pondered, pay good money for a bottle of Pepsi when simply peering through the bottle to view the promotion code under the lid will suffice?

The answer's hardly the Pepsi challenge, is it? Let's hope the firm repeats the low-tech clanger on this side of the pond, should us Brits ever be fortunate enough to have access to Apple's Itunes service.

With freebies in mind, PC owners who use or are considering switching to the Linux operating system might want to set aside a few hundred quid to pay for it. I beg your pardon? Pay?

As mentioned previously in this column, the open ource OS that's considered to be a not-for-profit giveaway by its creator, Linus Torvalds, and the rest of the sane world, is currently the subject of conflicting claims of ownership.

The latest twist in this saga of corporate silliness is that SCO has set up an 'Intellectual Property Licence' scheme, requiring Linux users to cough up for continued use of the operating system without fear of legal action.

For desktop users, the fee is $199 for a permanent licence, more than the cost of an upgrade to Windows XP Home. Is it any wonder that distributed denial of service attacks have intermittently rendered SCO's website inaccessible?

Backbiter wonders when the perpetrators of these electronic assaults will realise that SCO has set up a new online home at www.thescogroup.com, which is functioning just fine. For now.

If you have any moans, groans or scurrilous gossip that you think might interest backbiter, you can email him at backbiter@pcw.co.uk.