"Avenue A. Inc" on NT Compatible?

[SnapperOne 0]

Whenever I attempt a screen change, from within any forum on NTC, SpyBot indicates that "Avenue A. Inc" is attempting to load. Is "Avenue A" on NTc by design?

[jmmijo 1]

Hmm, I've not seen that appear but hopefully somebody else will know for sure.

 

It sounds like you have some adware stuff lurking about. Have you tried a scanner like Adaware 6.xx yet ?!?

 

I use it all the time and it works great

[Sampson 0]

You've picked up a cookie that you need to delete:

 

"Another major advertising network which use cookies is Atlas DMT (formerly Avenue A, Inc.). Atlas is a member of the aQuantive, Inc. family which includes Avenue A, an interactive advertising agency, and iFRONTIER, a full service interactive agency. Atlas DMT, the creator of the Atlas™ Digital Marketing Suite, provides digital marketing technologies for online advertising agencies. You can optout of accepting Atlas/AvenueA cookies by clicking this link http://www.atlasdmt.com/privacy/opting.asp. This link will check to see if you have an active cookie and switch it out for an OptOut cookie which will therefore no longer track your surfing."

 

That's the company line. It is best to kill the cookie.

[dennmaster 0]

I have a problem with my computer trying to download Avenue A, INC when I am on line. I saw a link on your page about stopping this from happening and try to go to it. It did not work. How can I stop this from coming up? I have Spybot and it keeps asking me if I want to block it. I keep saying yes, but it does no good at all. It still keeps coming up.

What can I do to stop this from happening?

 

[Sampson 0]

Unfortunately, that address disappeared some time ago. Try Spyware Blaster http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html . It specifically blocks that cookie, and it is free. Ad-aware will also find and destroy it. You might consider using another browser than IE such as an IE derivative like MyIE2 or Slimbrowser where you can designate certain ads to be blocked. There are also two shareware programs available that alert you that a cookie is being installed: Cookie Crusher and Cookie Pal.

[tuporcollin 0]

Hi everyone,

 

Thanks to info I read on your site, I found the site that I hope will take care of the "Avenue A, Inc." problem.

 

The site for opting out of the cookie changed: Go to http://www.atdmt.com/info/optout_fa.asp?cmd=optOut

for a description of how the company explains that it will let you "opt out" of this cookie running on your computer by letting it put a "blank" cookie that basically says "Keep Out" to any web ads using their service.

 

I haven't gotten the opt out thing to work. It tells me that I don't have my browser set to accept 3rd party cookies. I reduced my privacy settings a little bit but became distrustful that they wanted me to reduce it all the way to low (on IE>Internet Options>Privacy) in order for them to be able to install this cookie. I may be too untrusting but can you blame me? Let me know if you folks find anything out related to this.

 

Also, see their Privacy page for info on how their cookie and web marketing work. http://www.atlasdmt.com/privacy/general.asp

 

From their site:

We assign a cookie to every user who visits a website where an Atlas DMT banner is displayed and where our web beacons (see discussion below) are placed. Many web companies use cookies to help tailor web pages to the user's unique needs and interests, based on either a user's past actions when visiting a website, or based on ways a user has chosen to customize the website. Atlas DMT uses cookies solely to track advertising effectiveness and to select the best ads to serve. One example of this is measuring how often an anonymous user sees an ad; among other things this helps us ensure that the user is not shown the same ad over and over again.

 

So, I believe that this company operates not from web sites themselves, but the ads that go on them. Since ntcompatible has ads, I believe that this is why we see Avenue A, Inc. pop up from our Spybot program. Frankly, I think they are a legitimate marketing company after reading their company info. I read the KPMG audit http://www.atlasdmt.com/privacy/kpmg.asp and don't see anything inaccurate in their assessment of the company.

On the other hand, I am annoyed that I get that pop up everytime. I haven't discovered how to adjust the settings of Spybot - Search & Destroy to just block Avenue A and not to warn me. I guess I got more than what I paid for anyway, right? I love the other features, but can't figure this out. So, if anyone knows how to configure it to just block without asking, let me know. An address I read once every couple weeks is the one I'll give out so spammers don't pick up my address:

collinkelly the'at'sign lycos.com .

Wish you the best.

[tuporcollin 0]

Okay, I'll share with you and for posterity:

 

I finally got annoyed with the warning about Avenue A, Inc. from Spybot, so I went to that site (http://www.atlasdmt.com/privacy/) , temporarily lowered my privacy setting to the lowest to accept all cookies in order to let them install the opt out cookie.

But it didn't stop the warnings from spybot!

Even though Atlas DMT (the marketing company who uses Avenue A, Inc. to collect info on which ads we have seen how many times, etc.) is not supposedly sending info back to their site, the trusty spyware detector is still picking up the web beacon in ads that subscribe to this marketing service.

 

Wow...this is annoying. Can't seem to tell spybot to relax and just take care of business and the Avenue A service is on tons of sites that are ad-driven.

Well...guess I better write spybot to ask them about it. As I said before, if any of you know how to tell spybot to just block Avenue A without asking me, please enlighten me!

[tuporcollin 0]

Hello again, maybe this will work.

 

I copied the following from this site: http://www.computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/157451.html

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What you should do, is launch SpyBot S&D, press "Immunize", go to the "Permanently running Bad Download Blocker" section, and choose "Block all pages silently". That should give you some peace and quiet.

These AvenueA items are just cookies.

Now, in comparison to "real" spyware, cookies really are harmless.

 

You could put sites you don't want to receive cookies from in the Restricted Zones (Internet Options/Security), or install a dedicated cookie manager like for example Cookie Pal or Cookie Wall, which will allow you to differentiate between cookies you always want to allow, and the ones you always want to block.

 

You can also use the Internet Options Privacy tab to do that:

Go to the Privacy Tab > Advanced, and check "override automatic cookie handling".

 

Now set "first party cookies" to 'prompt' , and "third party cookies" to 'block', and not a single cookie will be installed without your express approval. Hope this helps.

 

Wesley

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[TrinityS 0]

thank you for posting the solution-- the Avenue A message from SpyBot was pushing me over the edge... thanks for your help!

 

Trinity