Protect Your Computer and Yourself!

Have you noticed strange yellow or green underlines and text on different websites you visit? If so, your computer has probably been "infected" with the latest "thiefware" program called TopText.

Here's how "thiefware" works: You visit a website (such as this one) and notice ugly yellow or green underlined text. Thinking the colored text represents a link you might be interested in, you click on it. Suddenly, you find yourself off the page you were reading and taken to a merchant's website. For example, reading an article about identity theft, you see that the words "credit card" in the article are underlined or colored in yellow. You click on the word and discover that you've been sent to the website of a company offering credit cards.

Not only does this detract from your reading and visiting, it also takes away from the website owner. Most website owners work hard to create interesting content, such as articles and resources, targeted at a very specific audience. On my site, TheLightKeeper.com, you'll find tons of articles and links for at-home parents. I've put a lot of hard work into this site and have never made a profit; but money isn't the reason I do it. Still, it would be nice to make enough to pay for the hosting costs, so I use banners and affiliate advertising.

Along comes the makers of "thiefware," which sends visitors from my site and my affiliates to their sites and their affiliates. They're stealing my visitors and hijacking my website! I created this blue and white color scheme because I find it calm and interesting - and they populate it with ugly green and yellow links!

The worst part about "thiefware," however, isn't the theft of my visitors (as repugnant as I find it). It's the threat they pose to you and your family. Recent tests discovered that visitors to the Disney.com site, who had the thiefware on their systems, were exposed to links leading to pornography sites. Imagine this scenario: Your son or daughter is playing on the computer while you sit nearby, catching up on your filing. Suddenly, a moaning sound fills the room. You glance up in alarm to find that little Susie, who was exploring her favorite children's website, clicked on a bright green link and was taken to a website extolling the virtues of "Teen Princesses." And not the kind of "teen princesses" your daughter wants to be when she grows up - the kind of "teen princesses" who aren't really teens at all and certainly aren't wearing princess garb (or anything else, for that matter).

The scary thing is, even your filtering software may not be enough to stop them, as the links are "disguised" in deep referral codes and don't often show up on Internet filtering lists.

Next Week: Seeing green? Keep the kids away!