Is it that Bing thing? I hate Bing with a passion.

Bean....no... it's called Vibrant in-text advertising and it's a real nuisance, distracting and interrupting you from reading a line of text with popup ads coming up on certain words.

I've also opted out even though it means you have to have a cookie on your computer just to NOT see the ads.

It can also mean that any text you post could be subjected to ads inserted without your knowledge or control. Not nice.

SharonCb

I hate Bing too, but Sharon is right, we cant blame this on Bing. It is also called IntelliTXT

Here is a link that might be useful: IntelliTXT

So how do we opt out?

They did it briefly a few years ago and it was so annoying. It will not be any less annoying now.

Anytime you move your mouse over a highlighted word, up pops a totally irrelevant ad. Sometimes the link was so bizarre it was laughable, but usually it was just distracting.

When I'm surfing the net, I just back off of the pages that have those links and don't go back.

For example, they'd link the word "flour" to a definition of flour (??!) or link it to a florist (??!). I would guess that the poor drones writing this code don't speak English because so few of the links make sense.

I hit a page yesterday that had those links, and they didn't make any more sense than they did years ago.

Hopefully, iVillage will see how annoying and useless it is and do away with it quickly. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it.

I know it's about ad revenue, but for a few years I paid $15 a year for Gardenweb forums, and I'd be happy to do it again.

Who owned GW a few years ago when they tried this?
There were so many complaints and the site hits went way down. I know I avoid sites that use IntelliTXT.. hate having to dodge those highlighted words.

I'd much rather pay a fee to use a nice site. Intrusive advertising just p!sses me off, to the point that I would never order anything advertised that way.

Please....site owners....reconsider what ruining this site will ultimately cost.

Nancy

I haven't seen any place to opt out. I really could get on a soapbox about having to opt out instead of having to opt in anyway. But I won't 'cause I know others here probably feel the same way.

Okay, just saw the important anouncement line at the top.

"Spike" used to own it, it was sold to iVillage in November, 2004.

Spike did a great job, we miss him.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardenweb sold to iVillage

I clicked on "disable" and it took me back to the screen that said, "if you want to disable click..." which I clicked on again, and it took me back to the screen "If youwant to disable..." Anyway, it circled 8 times before I gave up. Hope I am disabled.

Yes, I saw this and I do not like it. i spend so much time dodging ads while on the net. Yes, I have Mozilla with Ad bLock, but not on my laptop which belongs to my employer. Anything we download is immediately removed.

Yes, I will opt out but it is annoying to think that others who haven't will be seeing those highlighted words in my posts. On the other hand it might be a challenge to include outrageous words in my posts and see what kind of ads pop up.

iVillage has been part of NBC since 2006. NBC is owned by GE. NBC is now on the auction block so I imagine when it's eventually sold GW will be part of the deal.

Here's an excerpt from the original NBC purchase...

"NBC Universal Nabs iVillage in $600 Million Deal
Print Version
E-Mail Article
Reprints
By Jennifer LeClaire
E-Commerce Times
03/06/06 10:54 AM PT

"As this transaction demonstrates, we are committed to delivering content to consumers through distribution systems both traditional and new," said Bob Wright, vice chairman and executive officer of General Electric, NBC Universal's parent company."

I've opted out. Hope it works. I, too, would rather pay $15.

/t

Here is a link that might be useful: NBC Purchases iVillage

Apparently, Bing is part of Vibrant in-text somehow. There look to be three or four companies offering this "service".
I can't imagine anyone actually likes or uses it, but I guess someone must or it wouldn't be worth their while to offer it.

I think I've figured out how to get rid of Bing/Vibrant on any website -- at least in IE.
In the borwser menu, go to Tools
Select Internet Options
Select the Security Tab
Select Restricted Sites
Click on "Sites" button
Enter everything after this colon:Â *.us.intellitxt.com

I haven't seen any since I did it, so I have my fingers crossed.

I tried their disable button, too, and I think it worked, but there was no confirmation or anything to tell me it worked. I don't know if I can do your method on my Mac, Beanthere, but I'll see what I can figure out.

Sally

Sally, I use Firefox on a Mac and I never saw that annoying stuff when they did it before.

I think everyone should be less quick to say they'd be glad to pay a fee. Management just shouldn't do this kind of thing, because people hate it. It's dumb advertising.

True, CC, but I think I would. I paid for GW back when Spike owned it, so I might pay for it now IF there were NO ads and some features (like a spellcheck) were added.

I can't even remember how much it was then. It's been too long. It was something like $25, wasn't it?

Still no rollover ads since making the change, so here's hoping it's a permanent fix!

You will get them if you use Firefox.

Sometimes it's only a "mouseover" and once you move your mouse off the link it goes away, but a lot of them make you actually close the pop-up link. And they are not blocked by pop-up blockers.

I never got them.