Things I Hate About The Internet

Spam - The number one thing that I hate about the internet is
the proliferation of spam email. For every email that I receive
I at least one spam message. Hardly a day goes by when I don't
get some idiot asking me to help them smuggle a hundred million
dollars out of Nigeria, increase the sizes of various body
parts, or sign up (for "almost free") for some sexual site.
It's gotten so that life without spam filters would not even
be possible. Do these people make any money off their spam?
What kind of imbecile would respond to a spam message and
purchase anything?

http://www.internet-tips.net/Email/SPAM.htm

Email harvesters - Since we manage several dozen websites, my
wife and I have had to take extreme precautions to ensure that
our email addresses do not get picked up by email harvesters.
These are software robots that scan websites for email
addresses, which are then added to those "bizillion contacts"
CD collections. Putting your email address on your web site used
to be normal, now it's become suicidal.

Pop-up Windows - These include pop-ups and all of the clever
derivations like pop-unders. In years past, a pop-up was the
sign of a free site (such as Tripod or GeoCities) or some tacky
spammy site. Now everyone seems to be doing it. I'll put up
with one pop-up once and only once from a site. But if they
want me to return or purchase something, they had better not
put up another.

Anti-Microsoft ranting - I know that Microsoft has it's faults
(more than their share of them) and I know the company often is
it's own worst enemy, but is it possible to write about the
company (positive or negative) without producing a slew of
rantings? It used to be entertaining, now it's just more of the
same.

Web Bugs - These are little 1x1 pixel graphics designed to help
marketing companies track the performance of their advertising
campaigns. More insidiously, web bugs can be used to track
people's movement throughout the web. Life would be better
without them, especially in HTML email messages.

Advertising for that "tiny little wireless camera that goes
anywhere" - This has to be one of the most annoying
advertisements on the web. Can't we just ban it forever?

Webmasters that are more worried about getting listed by search
engines than creating quality sites - I understand that search
engines are necessary for the survival of a web site. But adding
countless link farms, keywords and other things is getting
ridiculous. Removing content or links or webrings just to get
listed is even worse. I believe we webmasters should just
create good sites.

Sites that try to prevent deep linking - The web is all about
linking. While it is indeed bandwidth theft to link to an
object such as an image, movie or audio clip, linking to any
HTML (or ASP, PHP or similar) page is not only fine but must be
encouraged. You will hear similar arguments against fair use.
As you no doubt already know, the fair use laws (part of
copyright) allow you to quote or make minor usage of copy
written works without permission or notification. The
uninformed will often argue that any copying is bad - however,
fair use is not only good but essential in a free world (how
else could you write a movie review, for example, or a term
paper).

Deep linking is equally essential to the survival of the web
as such. Any attempts by those with hidden agendas or those
with little intelligence to suppress our ability to deep link
must be fought with all of our might. If not, the web will
cease to be free and will become a quagmire much like American
television.

Bandwidth Theft - Please don't like directly to my pictures,
videos, sound files and other similar objects. You can link to
my pages, but not to the other things. This is called bandwidth
theft, and it basically means you are stealing from me.

Changing my Browsers controls - Webmasters, please don't change
my back key to back up to anything except the previous page.
Please don't disable the right click function and don't do
anything to the size of the browser window. It's rude and you
can pretty much bet that I won't be back.

Free Hosts that Disable use - A new trend is free hosts which
allow a certain amount of bandwidth to be used by each site per
month. Once that limit is exceeded the site is shut down until
the next month. This makes it really difficult for these free
sites to survive, as they will drop from search engines and be
removed from webrings because for a week or two they don't
exist. Worse yet, most of these free hosts state the bandwidth
is a certain amount (say 2gb/month) but the sites they shut down
most certainly do not get anywhere near that much traffic.

Paid hosts that go to hell - Every single paid hosting service
that I've used (about a dozen of them) started good and quickly
went downhill. In the hosting world, poor customer service, poor
performance and rudeness to customers seems to be the rule.
Perhaps this is why they seem to be failing right and left.

Sites that include a statement like "Best viewed with" - A good
webmaster makes sure that his site can be viewed (at least at a
crude level) in any browser. Older browsers may only display
text and text links, but the site should still work.

Sites without site maps - This is like trying to read a book
without a table of contents. Please take the time to make a
decent site map so I can get around your site.

Large Sites Without Site Search Engines - Sites with thousands
of pages need to include site specific search engines. Why?
Because it is not possible to have a navigation system that
foresees everything I might want to find out. If you want me to
use your site and it's large, then please include a good search
capability.

Informational Sites with too much advertising - Look, I know
some sites want to remain "free" and must pay the bills somehow.
And I understand that the chosen dogma is that advertisers will
pay for exposure. But do you have to include a half dozen
banners, twenty links, three pop-ups, a pop-under and those
silly monitors which fall from the top of the screen? Sites
which do this would be better just charging people for access -
if their content is good people will pay.

Sites which do not respect my privacy - I'm sorry, but you
don't need my address, phone number or social security number
unless I am doing specific kinds of business with you. And I am
not going to tell you all about myself to fill out your silly
survey. Just give me good content, a good shopping experience or
good entertainment (whatever you are selling) and I will be
happy.

And, oh yes, I do monitor where my information goes. If I find
out my personal data has been given or sold to another company,
you will NOT get my business again.