User: Mister Poll

AdAware is a great program. It can catch some nasty spyware programs that piggyback on seemingly innocent software installations. It happens a lot these days with file trading applications such as LimeWire, BearShare, etc.

Cookies within your web browser are not spyware by themselves. They are simply little bits of information set by a web site that are only sent back to that web site. For instance, if MisterPoll set any cookies, DoubleClick could not see them. Likewise, we at MisterPoll can't see or access any cookies that DoubleClick might set when they serve one of their ads to you.

Cookies are usually used to enhance the functionality of a web site, like remembering who you are after you log in. Ad networks do sometimes use them to track surfing patterns in order to serve you more relevant ads. DoubleClick probably does do this, but I don't know that for sure. Some consider that spying, while others don't.

Anyway, just to clear the air, we at MisterPoll do not install any spyware software on your computers. In fact, that's impossible to do through a standard web browser. We do, however, understand that some people do not like advertiser cookies. That's why we've been working on an ad-free alternative for folks who would like to surf MisterPoll without DoubleClick cookies or pop-up ads. Look for it to launch next month.

========== In Reply To ========== Double Click I presume are the people responsible for the pop-ups which nobody seems to do anything about. Double Click are also the people dropping spyware cookies onto my computer everytime I come here. I used to enjoy coming here but now I'm having second thoughts. I recommend that visitors here get some spyware detection software and clean up their computers. Try AD-AWARE at downloads.com Is Misterpoll aware of this (you are now) and what are you going to do about it?

I have a bit of good news to share! We now have an automated review notification system in place. This means that after your poll is reviewed, you will receive an email letting you know the outcome. Hopefully this will close the black hole of endless waiting that rejected pollsters used to endure. Plus, if your poll is accepted, you'll know right away. "Catch up" notices were sent out this afternoon for all polls added since the beginning of the year. From this point forward, they will be sent once each day.

I also forced myself to weed through the DoubleClick ads to prune out most of the annoying popups, interstitials, etc. There are still a some pop-ups in place, but I only left a few fairly innocent ones.

It's really not too tough. Just click on "Search", put in the keywords "Blooming Grove", select "All Polls", and click the "Find Poll!" button. I found two polls my first try.

========== In Reply To ========== I have gone to the search menu numerous times and still can't find any of the polls for Blooming Grove High School. I wanted to vote on some of them but I can't find any of them. This website sucks. You can't find $%!@!

Have you seen a resurgance of spanking and "pervert" polls in the categorized directory? Hopefully that's not the case, as we make a point to tag those polls as "Limited Interest". That means you can only find them via the search engine. If you're searching for "spanking", you really shouldn't be offended at finding spanking polls. :) Please let us know if you're seeing these in the public directory.

As far as the popups go, I must admit that I have been rather slack about reviewing the ads for the last month. DoubleClick's tool for reviewing them is extremely tedious and it takes a lot of time, so I've been procrastinating. Sorry about that. I'll force myself to go through and clean them up.

========== In Reply To ========== Mr Poll has become popup hell! I used to enjoy coming here, but between the resurgance of spanking and other pervert polls, and these popups, I really don't see much reason to stay.

Too bad, it was a fun site. Is MrPoll going to do anything to fix these problems?

Hi Angela,

Actually, this person had not been brought to our attention before. I did some investigation and saw that his messages should have been "cleaned up" by our automatic language filter. However, I found out that the message filtering was broken in our last update.

The good news is that I just fixed the filters, so the message areas should look much cleaner. It doesn't delete nasty messages, but it does clean them up with cartoon like swear words, $#@!. :)

========== In Reply To ========== When is Mister Poll going to do something about the relentlessly filthy and grossly insulting messages posted by the person who proudly displays his e-mail address as follows?: gelding3@aol.com

You've expressed your concern about sexual explicitness in spanking polls, but someone who does nothing on these boards but spew his venomous, toilet-obsessed garbage is permitted to carry on regardless.

It's possible that this person hasn't been brought to your attention before, but that is no longer the case.

Thank you.