ad liability

One of the forums that I visit quite frequently has recently begun serving up banner ads for sites that utilize spammy tactics to hook users into downloading so-called "free" utilities and products with piggyback trojans and spyware. Seeing how much damage spyware tends to cause to the average ungeek's computer, this raises an interesting ethical dilemma. Should websites be held accountable for the types of advertisements that they display?

In many cases, websites include a "Terms of Use" link somewhere on their site, usually in the footer. These legal disclaimers generally make some sort of statement that the site is not to be held liable for the content of sites that it may link out to. This blanket clause will probably protect websites from the legal liability inherent in displaying advertisements for malware-based businesses, but does it keep the users happy?

At this point, there are still enough "green" web surfers that don't know enough not to click on these types of ads. Most people know that when these popups or banners say something like, "Your computer is infected. Click here to fix it", you shouldn't click on it. However, there are still enough novice users out there that trojan horse viruses and browser hijackings are a fairly common occurrence (especially for users with crappy browsers like Internet Exploder). They may not figure it out right away, but eventually these users are going to discover where they got that nasty bug.

While webmasters may have their legal assets covered, their user base isn't going to put up with this type of abuse for very long, and as soon as they wise up and know where they received the virus from, they are bound to take some form of revenge. Some may just never return. Others will tell their friends and acquaintances about how a once trusted site is now serving bad ads that cause serious damage to computers. Some may go even further and try to sabotage the remaining user base of the site.

In a nutshell, I guess what I am trying to say is this - watch out, webmasters. Random advertisements are easy to serve with very little maintenance, but the time that it will take to get your visitors back will likely outweigh the time that you save by not screening your advertisers. Consider yourself warned...