Redirected

A few minutes ago I discovered you would be redirected from my blog to a URL that looked like this:

http://x.vindicosuite.com/imp/?l=169943&t=h&u=&r=&rnd=75008735

Where the query string item ‘rnd’ had a different value each time you tried to visit my page. It appears to have been some sort of malware associated with Sitemeter. I remove Sitemeter and the problem went away.

Sorry about that.

But this may explain the complaints I have occasionally received from readers about popup ads here. There should not be any here. But if someone was able to infect Sitemeter’s scripts then such a thing is possible.

The domain registration info is as follows:

Registrant Name: Lee Sautia
Registrant Organization: Vindico LLC
Registrant Street: 245 5th Ave., 21st Floor
Registrant City: New York
Registrant State/Province: New York
Registrant Postal Code: 10016
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.6468332940
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: domains@vindicogroup.com

Using vindicogroup.com as an URL redirects to http://vindico.com/. This website claims they do behavior based video advertising. I would like to inform them that it is not surprising to me that such slimy behavior as theirs originated from someone in New York City and my behavior is to have nothing to do with them.

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14 thoughts on “Redirected

  1. Thanks.
    That script would also redirect when visiting other (not all, but some) sites as well.
    I had to delete everything from the cache except for some known, useful cookies to stop it.

  2. Pingback: SayUncle » Spammeter

  3. Excellent data. I put those domains on my blacklist.
    I’ve been using for about a year now a nice “outbound firewall” program for Mac called “Little Snitch”. Odd name; perhaps the fact its author is German might have something to do with it. In any case, unlike a typical firewall it filters outbound connections rather than inbound ones, and it’s very good for dealing with this sort of misbehavior. I’ve already put several notorious popup vendors on its “deny this domain forever” list.
    I don’t know if there are analogous Windows tools (you can do this on Linux, of course). But for those of you who are Mac users and who might want this sort of feature, check it out.

  4. Tam complained of something similar this morning. She cut Sitemeter off as well.

  5. Other sites had the same issues, at least Right sites, and seemed to be sitemeter for them as well.

  6. I noticed that on DAYBYDAY cartoon yesterday. It was apparently corrected by today, although I didn’t notice any mention of it in the comments.

    Sucks, when your ‘freeware’ turns on you like this.

  7. Just passed to Uncle that Peter, Tam and Roberta X have all converted to StatCounter…Peter has a link

  8. Statcounter is reasonably user-friendly thus far, and it looks like the paid service is pretty full-featured, should I get a wild hair.

    • I’m going to switch over soon. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Sitemeter for quite a while now. This was the last straw. The relationship is over.

  9. I just put sitemeter.com on my “deny all connections for all applications” list. That way even websites that still use those clowns will not trouble me.

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