Without the right information, we cannot do anything about the malicious ads, but with your help, we can make the internet a safer place.
Here's a guide on how to report bad ads with Google Chrome, IE and Firefox, but it's almost the same for other browsers. On IE, press F12 to access the debugger, on Firefox, install Firebug and press F12. In Chrome, use Ctrl-Shift-I.
- In Chrome: select the "html" element and ctrl-c ctrl-v the data into a text file, save it.
- In IE: Ctrl-S inside the developer tools saves a version I can use. Don't use save from the IE screen.
- In Firebug: Select the html tab, select the html node, right click and select copy innerHtml. Paste it into a text file and save.
- Make sure there's a comment like <!-- Leaderboard NL --> in it, that part contains the information I need. The good IE save file starts with something silimar to <!-- saved from url=(0036)http://www.worldoflogs.com/ -->
- Write down the following information: the page with the malicious ad, your IP (see http://www.whatismyip.com/ if you don't know it), the country / network you're on.
- Email the result to miles@worldoflogs.com, use the tag [BA] in the subject so it get flagged for priority. Screenshots (the more the better) helps a lot too. Especially if it's a warning from any anti-virus/spyware/whatever program. If the dialog box contains a details/more info button, click it and screenshot that too.
- Bonus point: highlight the section with the ad causing trouble. Using the developer tools, search for Leaderboard for example, you'll get something like
- Note: The saved html using the above steps is NOT the same as saving the page. That only saves the original page, not how the page looks like after the scripts are executed. That's why "view source" is useless for tracking down advertising. I need the one after that one <script> tag has been transformed into a wall of text, not before.
- (In FF+Web dev toolbar, view generated source works.)