Robin
Waldron,#2Consumer Comment
Thu, February 06, 2003
I ran across a report on this site from Karen, also from Hot Springs, AR. Her report concerned a company called TelCollect which seems to engage in the same practices as Alyon. A spinoff? Who knows.
There is some controversy about whether or not one must click an "OK" button to download this dialling software. I also remember an article in PC World (last year or perhaps even earlier) that concerned software being downloaded into a PC just by scrolling over the ad; NOTHING had to be OK'd. I suppose these advertisers/(censored) felt that the simple act of passing your cursor over their material meant that you were interested.
There are so many people out there who seem genuinely puzzled as to how this dialler got installed; that is a possible scenario. Porn sites were the worst at this; they literally "hijacked" your modem dialling instructions. I cannot believe that they were the only industry using this method, so I am certainly not saying that any one of you went to porn sites. You just need to be aware that the technology is out there. I suppose that the only way to be safe from these leeches is to check your default dialling set up is still the same after Web-surfing. If you find that you've been hijacked by a site perhaps we can get this narrowed down and find out what site is doing this! And if one of you does find it, please share with the rest of the ripped-off folks so everyone can know what to avoid!