Another ebay ripoff-of Jack

Ben N · March 28, 2004, 01:53:29 AM

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3714268580&category=22669

The description is straight off of Jacks Rat mods page, but there isn't so much as a breath of acknowledgment.

:evil:

DaveTV · March 28, 2004, 02:50:48 AM

And what's up with the crazy hidden message? Click and drag the mouse across the white space below the text (I found it accidentally using the mouse gestures in Firebird). He's got some band names embedded there to increase search hits but there's also a little personal message as well. Is it common for people to hide messages on Ebay?

Fret Wire · March 28, 2004, 02:56:05 AM

That's different. So that's how you get your auction to come up on multiple searches. ...And, if you play the album backwards......

bwanasonic · March 28, 2004, 03:05:43 AM

If you are selling a RAT, and you have "big muff,2, mxr,boss,dod" in the description, you should be flogged mercilessly in public. *Borrowed* descriptions from other websites, and it's your nipples jumper-cabled to a truck battery. *Hidden Messages* in your auction text, and it's straight to the Soylent Green plant. Alas, I remember Ebay before *Invasion Of The Ass-Clowns*.

Kerry M

Bucksears · March 28, 2004, 07:50:01 AM

Pret-ty sneaky, sis.

Rodgre · March 28, 2004, 12:16:21 PM

the hidden white text is something you typically do with websites, called meta tags. For example, if I have a band that sounds like, say John Denver meets Boston, I would want anyone searching for those things to find my web site on a search engine. Search engines will collect data from the text on your page, including the meta tags, so if I put "Denver Rocky Mountain Sunshine on My Shoulder Don't Look Back Sholtz harmonies overdub Third Stage...." etc in my meta tags, you get the message.

I think my band's website actually has all of my effect pedals listed in the meta tags, so if you search for "Tel-ray" you probably will find us eventually and not know why.

The funny thing is that they have "13 second delay" listed instead of 16 second....

Roger

bwanasonic · March 28, 2004, 01:43:22 PM

Quote from: Rodgrethe hidden white text is something you typically do with websites, called meta tags.

I know what they were TRYING to do. I just think it is wholly inappropriate for auctions. It is essentially the bait and switch tactic. If you have something for auction, write a description of the item you have for auction. That's it. I have never and will never bid on an auction that has *hit enhancement techniques*. Let alone the feebs who can't write their own copy, and copy-paste from another website without credit. I get all Travis Bickle-like just thinking about it.

Kerry M

javacody · March 28, 2004, 02:40:05 PM

Actually, Meta tags are something different entirely. They are usually found in the html head tag:

<HEAD>
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Adobe PageMill 3.0 Mac">
<TITLE>Aron's Stompbox Forum</TITLE>
</HEAD>

This was taken from this forum page. Just do a view source and you can see it. There are different Meta tags for different purposes. Meta tags aren't considered sneaky, hidden text is. A lot of search engines will ban you for using it.

As for stealing descriptions, it seems to be fairly common on ebay. You can always send the seller a message.

Hidden text can be used in a real predatory manner. Say your are some creep trying to lure teenagers or children to your chat room, you simply add hidden text that says things like "pokemon barbie gi joe bratz", etc. etc.

The Tone God · March 28, 2004, 05:03:06 PM

This is what ebayer's call "name spamming" which is using a similar product's name in association to what your selling without actually selling that product. It is used to increase the hit likelyness of the auction. It happens alot now and I don't like it personally. Its misleading especially when the product is no where near what the actually auction is selling.

It has been made a violation of Ebay's TOS to use name spamming. That is not much of an issue here but what is a bigger issue is the use of copyrighted material without permission, that we know of.

Andrew

mikeb · March 28, 2004, 09:25:35 PM

My understanding is that the person selling the pedal isn't the person who originally did the mods. If you look, there is some mention of the 'fxdoctor'; it could be this person who originally did the mods and sold it to the person auctioning the item on ebay. If so, then it is possible the person auctioning the item is using the description provided to him by the 'fxdoctor', without even knowing that the 'fxdoctor' ripped the info from Jacks' page.

Mike

Dan N · March 28, 2004, 10:59:54 PM

Pretty sneaky!

BillyJ · March 28, 2004, 11:02:34 PM

Why not ask instead of assume?
http://www.fxdoctor.com/
Who really cares though?
:twisted:

keko · March 28, 2004, 11:25:10 PM

Quote from: javacodyActually, Meta tags are something different entirely. They are usually found in the html head tag:

<HEAD>
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Adobe PageMill 3.0 Mac">
<TITLE>Aron's Stompbox Forum</TITLE>
</HEAD>
.

This post is very OT, but regarding the quote:

...this code is a bit old, may I say. Actually, many search engines, or 'bots' don't even bother with meta tags these days. Text within your page still count's though.

travissk · March 29, 2004, 12:43:48 PM

I *think* the latest HTML name-spamming trick is to use hidden DIV tags, but it's been a while since I visited any design sites to hear about it.

I get somewhat annoyed on ebay when people put "not __ ___ ___" at the end of their auction. Such as

ROGUE STRAT not fender marshall gibson telecaster

Mainly because I don't do search by full description too much.

Chris R · March 29, 2004, 01:18:46 PM

You'd be supprised what information is on ebay.. there are published accounts federal criminals that have passed info to each other by embeding messages into the pictures of the auctions.

This practice is known as Steganography.

You can think of this as a step further than encryption. An encrypted message is obvious to anyone that it is in fact encrypted, which gives someone who wants to break the encryption a starting point. However, an encrypted message that is embedded into a picture is not so obvious.

The record industry is looking very closely at this technology to accomplish their Digital Rights Management (DRM).

We could use this to hide the copyright info for our schematics.. inside the image.. that way we could tell who is posting the exact same image on their website.

Theres lots of links on google.. just look up "Steganography"

Chris

freeradical24 · March 29, 2004, 05:55:22 PM

i flat out boycott sellers who name bait.even if they have something i really want.its hard enough finding what you need with ebay's lame search engine without things popping up you have no interest in.

SaBer · March 30, 2004, 09:56:26 AM

I was looking for modem drivers for my laptop last week and bumped into this. (Check the bottom of the page)

http://www.101-dreamweaver-tutorials.com/modem.html

I've also seen similar pages before. It just pisses me off when half of my google results are something I'm not looking for... :evil:

Alex C · March 31, 2004, 10:29:32 PM

Quote from: SaBerI was looking for modem drivers for my laptop last week and bumped into this. (Check the bottom of the page)

http://www.101-dreamweaver-tutorials.com/modem.html

No, you've got it all wrong; they're helping you out: "Top 500 Related Search Terms - If you did not find the content you were looking for, scan through these commonly searched terms. Copy the term into the Google Search Box and see if this helps. " How considerate. :roll:

Check this out: here's an Ebay search in effects pedals for the word "not." Look at all the name-spamming here.
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?query=not&catref=C3&from=R2&sacategory=41410&BasicSearch=

Alex

SaBer · April 01, 2004, 02:28:06 AM

Quote from: Alex C
Quote from: SaBerI was looking for modem drivers for my laptop last week and bumped into this. (Check the bottom of the page)

http://www.101-dreamweaver-tutorials.com/modem.html

No, you've got it all wrong; they're helping you out: "Top 500 Related Search Terms - If you did not find the content you were looking for, scan through these commonly searched terms. Copy the term into the Google Search Box and see if this helps. " How considerate. :roll:

Alex

Do they really think people don't know how to type into google??? Are they so f***ing stupid???
I think the fact, that it's hidden down there says something. They don't want you to see it! But, if you do, they have a good excuse to have it there...

Whatever.....

Oh, and by the way, check out the URL! It's a Dreamweaver (some sort of web-site making tool) tutorial. So probably nobody has given it a thought.

News:

Another ebay ripoff-of Jack

mikeb