Tri-isys popping ads on dial-up user sessions?

This tip was sent to me by a regular reader to investigate, though I think others might be able to help me with this if they’re on dial-up and using ISP Bonanza. Here’s an excerpt of the email sent to me:

I’m using ISPx Bonanza pre-paid internet card (dial-up). and recently, i’m getting an ad for Unisilver time watches after clicking on links on websites that are not affiliated with the watch company (see my attachment for the screenshot and the url), it happens at random times and i have to click “back” to visit the link i clicked.

I did a domain WHOIS look-up and I found out that Tri-isys (the providers of ISPx Bonanza) owns the domain and I’m wondering if they have the right to interrupt my browsing just to show me Sam Milby!

A sample screen shot of the ad is shown below:

Click on image to see larger version.

At first, I thought this was just your ordinary spyware or malware inserting ads during browser session. But, the fact that the ads were local means there’s more to it, so this needs a little more looking into.

Let me clarify though that Internet Service Providers should not be employing this kind of scheme. I think, the ISP or the ISP reseller is trying to augment the low revenue from prepaid card sales by popping ads in between user sessions. See, if the dial-up market is plunging and over saturated, we get really competitive prices sometimes in the tune of Php5USD 0.09INR 7EUR 0.08CNY 0.62 per hour plus unlimited browsing during off peak hours (usually 12 midnight to 7AM).

However, due to the massive competition among dial-up ISPs and their resellers, they might resort to other schemes for additional revenue and you end up with something like this incident. Just read the fine print at the back of the prepaid card — it may say they can do that too.

This is just my opinion though. We haven’t really established a pattern here but if any of your guys running on dial-up could try if they do get into similar situations.