Welcome to When The Internet Attacks! - we've got a great show for you today. Our episode focuses on that classic of web technology, the banner ad. All these ads were culled during my various traveling around the wasteland that is the worldwide web. We've got some doozies, so let's get started!

Not Yet, No

This one may be familiar to readers of the PBones.com Absurd Links, as it was featured in January, but I'm bringing it out again, because it's just too great. I can only assume these are the same people getting rich through this site: http://www.how-to-become-rich-through-the-internet.com/.

Please. Make It Stop.

There are many things wrong with this ad. First of all, it's an animated gif, and it's bouncing all over the place. It kind of makes me want to throw up a little from that alone. It's also attempting to look like an error dialog, despite having been embedded in page content, on my Mac (meaning it looks like exactly what it is, a shitty ad). Finally, why am I being warned that I just won a TV?

A couple things I do like about this - the close button [X], and the "No" button, predictably, work just the same as the "Yes", because the whole thing is one big link. But I also like that it's FREE*, where * means "See Details". I didn't follow the link, so maybe I missed out big time, but to me, FREE* is just not the same as FREE.

The Holiday Season Just Gets Longer And Longer...

This ad seems innocuous (or at least no worse than your average ad), but it actually talks. You can here it by clicking the Play button below (it's short).

Sure it's awful, but it's pretty similar to dozens of other audio ads out there. Until you see the full picture. That's right, this ad appeared on February 22nd, a full nine months before the next Thanksgiving. Apparently, as soon as Valentine's Day is over we're right on to Thanksgiving.

You May Have Already Not Won!

This ad seems to be the antithesis of so many bad banner ads out there, though that does nothing to save it. Instead of promising you something for free, or claiming you can win some prize, it instead tells you that you can't win, and then invites you to click. I have no idea why you would - "Oh boy, I can't win! Tell me more!". The banner ultimately leads to an FTC site working to prevent cross-border lottery scams, which is good, but why make such a useless banner ad? No one's clicking it but me.

That's all for now, but you can bet we'll have more stupid banner ads and more episodes of WTIA, so stay tuned. Send in your own stupid banner ads or just join us next time on When The Internet Attacks! - Cataloging the stupidity of the Internet, so you don't have to.