Of all the advertising-inflicted annoyances on the web, the “forced redirect” ad most deserves to be shot into the sun. As you’re reading a page an ad bumps your content aside with an obviously fraudulent pitch — maybe a phony claim that your computer has been hit with a virus, maybe a fictitious offer of a free gift card — and takes over your browser’s address bar. Clicking or tapping the back button doesn’t get you away from the pestilential ad, because it already sent your browser through a loop of page reloads. Your only recourse is closing the entire tab — or, if this happened as you read something shared on a social network’s mobile app, quitting the entire program. What’s more, these ads can lead you to download malware or trap you in a financial scam. “These are the bottom of the bottom,” said Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, an online-publishing group that has been campaigning against fraudulent and deceptive ads. And while everybody hates the way these
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