I am a frequent user of Dictionary.com. It’s a good website, that provides useful information.

Of late, however, I’ve noticed that every so often when I visit the site, a “pop-under” ad for Network Solutions (a pop-under ad pops up under the current browser window, and I usually don’t notice it until later).

I find these pop-up ads quite annoying, especially given that I am a longtime Network Solutions customer (last time I checked I have paid them $4015US over the years for domain name registrations).

So I decided, naive guy that I am, to ask Network Solutions to stop sending me annoying advertising. I went to the Network Solutions Chat with Customer Service page, and had an online chat with one of the customer service reps. I would copy and paste the chat transcript, but the Java applet that ran the chat wouldn’t allow me to do this.

After asking me various questions about the ads (are they from our website? are they from your website?), the customer service rep suggested that I contact the offending website (Dictionary.com) and ask them for help. When I pressed further, they suggested that I turn off Java and/or turn off cookies in my browser, and when I suggested this would compromise my experience of other websites, they suggested I look for a program that disables pop-up ads.

In other words, a company of which I’ve been a good customer for 6 years is paying to have another company plaster my house with ads and the only way they can suggest I can make it stop is to find yet another company to try and help me make it stop.

Does this not seem insane? I will be looking for somewhere else to take my domain name registration business.