All of us who sign Bravenet guestbooks know that they have pop-ups and a load of advertising at the top. It is a minor annoyance. Now Bravenet guestbooks have something more. Actually, they have had it for quite some time, but this was the first time I could capture it to show the rest of you.
About one in twenty times when bringing up or using a Bravenet guestbook, a pop up appears
that asks for a secure connection and says it is NOT from a trusted
company. I might grant the certificate if it were for a site I wanted to see, but for a popup this can only
be bad news. I've been turning it down, but every time I've seen it, it has worried me.
So, curious soul that I am, I decided to see what company was offering the certificate.
Here it is to the left. Why Ipowerweb.com wants to
ask for a secure connection on a popup is beyond me, but there it is.
Naturally, I told Ipowerweb.com to jump in a lake and got an "Action Canceled" page but I also saw that the page was at the following URL:
https://secure.ipowerweb.com/cgi-bin/tracker/tracker.cgi?rid=brvpopb
For some reason, Ipowerweb.com wants to track something I am doing on my computer and wants my permission to let it do so. I am glad I told it NO WAY. A tracker like this is a privacy violation, especially when it comes on a popup. It is easy when signing several guestbooks to make a slip of the hands and then.....
What this means is that every time any one of us uses a Bravenet guestbook, we run about a one in twenty chance of hitting this popup that poses a potential security and privacy threat to our computers. The solution of course is to avoid using Bravenet guestbooks. I can not enforce this solution but I will be including email addresses of those who have Bravenet books on their sites so that everyone who chooses to can avoid this popup and its security/privacy threat.
As for what is on your own sites, I can't tell you what to use or not use, but it might be a good idea to give some serious thought to dumping Bravenet. There are many other guestbook providers out there. None of us should have to deal with a security/privacy breach such as the Ipowerweb.com popup in Bravenet guestbooks.
Eileen H. Kramer/Roanna
Head of the RAOK Guestbook Committee
3/22/03