Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice
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@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@JaredBusch said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@scottalanmiller said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel is a scam:
@JaredBusch said in Skyetel is a scam:
@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel is a scam:
I haven't checked in a while from home (on a proper computer) but do the ads show up here when using PiHole?
Yes, because they host them locally on ML itself.
Never knew that, interesting and incredibly sneaky. . .
Not sneaky at all. PiHole only blocks ad hosting services, not pictures. Using ad hosting services is sketchy, not having pictures.
Also it is sneaky. An ad is an advertisement, of which I want to see none of them. Hosting images of advertisements is sneaky in that they can't be blocked through conventional tools and without needing to go an extra step.
This is not a new or hidden thing on ML. It was discussed a long time ago.
It was not something I knew of, and while it may have been discussed it's new to me.
It's not something you should have to know about. While it's totally public, both from having been discussed and you can just look at the website and tell (it's as public as public gets), it's also not fundamentally sneaky, it's as anti-sneaky as ads can possibly be. It's the definition of "not sneaky."
The problem is, you've created a false assumption about what an ad is and you have conflated "ad" with "tracking services hosted by companies like DoubleClick", which is simply not what an ad is. You don't feel that ads in print magazines are sneaky, right? But they don't come from a third party, they are right there on the paper.
Seems weird to call it sneaky when you look at what it actually is.
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@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@scottalanmiller sneaky is the act of circumventing the traditionally accept solution.
You are confusing "circumventing" with "doesn't do what you expected it to do." There was no circumvention. That you have a product that doesn't work as you desire is unrelated to the fact that these are just plain ads with no circumvention whatsoever. No sneaky, no circumventing. No nothing. Just plain as can be, simple as can be, ads.
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@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
If I updated my Avatar to be an ad for some service I sold, would this not be a separate conversation regarding the need to "pay to advertise here" (granted this community may let it slide, just using that as an example).
No, that's a weird assumption. Since, as long as you don't spam, promoting products and being a vendor is totally open, of course you can do that. Skyetel does, right in this thread. Their avatar is their product logo, that they sell, and they are not a paid vendor. We even make a big deal that this is allowed.
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@JaredBusch said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@scottalanmiller said in Skyetel is a scam:
Well, more like hiding the fact that is clearly isn't a scam and you made a false statement.
I made a statement that was factual based on all the information I had at the time. I in no way made an intentionally false statement.
Oh are we allowed to do that? Jump to a (radical) conclusion prematurely and then defend it by "I didn't have all the facts"?
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@zachary715 said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@JaredBusch said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@scottalanmiller said in Skyetel is a scam:
Well, more like hiding the fact that is clearly isn't a scam and you made a false statement.
I made a statement that was factual based on all the information I had at the time. I in no way made an intentionally false statement.
Oh are we allowed to do that? Jump to a (radical) conclusion prematurely and then defend it by "I didn't have all the facts"?
Only @JaredBusch is allowed to, for he is the FFS giver. His field of fucks is overburden with fucks with which to give.
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@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
Hosting images of advertisements is sneaky in that they can't be blocked through conventional tools and without needing to go an extra step.
That's because there are no conventional ad blocking tools. They might call themselves that, but doing so is sneaky, in the actual meaning of the word. They are trying to trick you into thinking that they look for ads and block them, they do not. PiHole has no function for this whatsoever. If you use PiHole and someone asks if you have an ad blocker, the answer is "no". It's a malicious service blocker, which is very, very different. It blocks the DNS addresses of questionable services. Most not because they serve ads, but because they serve all kinds of tracking systems or malware.
That blocking malware causes many ads to not display is really a side effect. But it is not "ads" that those tools block. So "sneaky" would only apply to referring to ad service blockers as ad blockers.
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sneak·y
/ˈsnēkē/
adjective
furtive; sly -
HTML does not offer a meta tag for ads. Even if people wanted to "advertise" that something was ad content versus other content (which gets into some murky areas), the language of the web does not allow for that. It's just not part of the data in HTML. And without that, anyone wanting to block ads has to make some judgement calls as to what constitutes an ad. Because now it gets crazy....
Do sidebar announcements to news items count? What about avatars to products? What about avatars of brands (people are brands, too.) What about the ML title bar, that advertises ML? What about topics about products, or responses to those?
Even as humans, we can't clearly define which things are what. It's all grey area. Every question about a product might be a sneaky ad, we don't know. Every response might be. Just posted might be a way to advertise ourselves. Anyone on ML that works in IT and might possibly benefit from it being known that they answer questions, ask questions, interface well in forums, just get noticed by a recruiter... these are all a form of ads.
Just this post by Dustin and its response by me, our text could be an ad where we are trying to get notoriety by having a discussion. What is and isn't an ad isn't something that is clear in the language. Because essentially everything that humans do, especially online, is an ad to someone.
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@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
sneak·y
/ˈsnēkē/
adjective
furtive; slyRight, which calling what you have an ad blocker is. And having the plainest, simplest, most open and public ads possible, is the opposite of.
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The sly thing that ML is doing is hosting the ads directly, knowing that doing so would bypass all commonplace adblockers.
There is zero denying it.
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@zachary715 said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@JaredBusch said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@scottalanmiller said in Skyetel is a scam:
Well, more like hiding the fact that is clearly isn't a scam and you made a false statement.
I made a statement that was factual based on all the information I had at the time. I in no way made an intentionally false statement.
Oh are we allowed to do that? Jump to a (radical) conclusion prematurely and then defend it by "I didn't have all the facts"?
I did not jump to any conclusion. I stated everything clearly and openly.
The subsequent discussion 1) proved that I could not have had all of the facts, thus my conclusion was logical, and 2) forced Skyetel to fix the cause of me not having the facts.
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@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
The sly thing that ML is doing is hosting the ads directly, knowing that doing so would bypass all commonplace adblockers.
There is zero denying it.
Take your paranoia to your own paranoid thread.. this one is mine..
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@DustinB3403 said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
The sly thing that ML is doing is hosting the ads directly, knowing that doing so would bypass all commonplace adblockers.
There is zero denying itExcept it...
- Predates those software updates.
- They aren't ad blockers.
- Not being covered is not the same as working around. There is no work around.
So no portion of your statement is true.
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@JaredBusch said in Skyetel is a scam:
@scottalanmiller said in Skyetel is a scam:
Well, more like hiding the fact that is clearly isn't a scam and you made a false statement.
I made a statement that was factual based on all the information I had at the time. I in no way made an intentionally false statement.
I will update the topic title at your request. I dislike doing so because of the implied financial pressure of an advertiser.
Sorry, man, that's absolute BS.
Feel free to spin it anyway you want, fact is, your statement was far from factual. -
@FATeknollogee said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@JaredBusch said in Skyetel is a scam:
@scottalanmiller said in Skyetel is a scam:
Well, more like hiding the fact that is clearly isn't a scam and you made a false statement.
I made a statement that was factual based on all the information I had at the time. I in no way made an intentionally false statement.
I will update the topic title at your request. I dislike doing so because of the implied financial pressure of an advertiser.
Sorry, man, that's absolute BS.
Feel free to spin it anyway you want, fact is, your statement was far from factual.It is not a spin. it is a fact. It was fact enough that they fixed it.
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Can we please just nuke this whole thread? All the feedback was already taken into consideration. It's really not becoming a good look for anyone.
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@IRJ said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
Can we please just nuke this whole thread? All the feedback was already taken into consideration. It's really not becoming a good look for anyone.
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@IRJ said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
Can we please just nuke this whole thread? All the feedback was already taken into consideration. It's really not becoming a good look for anyone.
I think everyone is okay with that, but it's Jared's thread and would need his okay.
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@scottalanmiller said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
@IRJ said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
Can we please just nuke this whole thread? All the feedback was already taken into consideration. It's really not becoming a good look for anyone.
I think everyone is okay with that, but it's Jared's thread and would need his okay.
We're okay with it - and we apologize for any confusion we may have caused here. We updated our Port In page per @JaredBusch 's suggestions.
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@IRJ said in Skyetel auto enables billable services without notice:
Can we please just nuke this whole thread? All the feedback was already taken into consideration. It's really not becoming a good look for anyone.
If anything, I think it's been a good look on Skyetel and an example of their customer service. Granted, it's out in the open and therefore have incentive to do better, but I think they've handled the bashing well and taken appropriate steps to satisfy the needy.
