If your view of my website includes any "text enhance ads" -- those annoying hyperlinks on individual words that produce pop-up ads, please know that I didn't put them there. 

This shows off my web naiveté, but I always assumed when I saw those on other people's websites that they were being paid for allowing them.  I didn't understand why the website owner would agree to it, since the links direct the reader away from the site and the stupid things are just annoying when you're trying to scroll through an article or post.  

So, when I saw them on my site, while looking at it on a family member's computer, knowing damn well that I didn't want them and didn't agree to them and wasn't getting paid for letting another business advertise on my website, I hit the roof.  

I have no legal or financial arrangement whatsoever with these third party advertisers.  They are hijacking my content for their financial gain.  They are implying to my readers that I'm endorsing certain products, which I most emphatically am not.  

They are also pissing me off.  Monumentally.  

I'll see if I can track down anything on my site that might be causing it.  But it's not showing up when I view the site on my computer so, if you see text enhancements, it's probably malware  or adware on your computer.    The good folks at Weebly, my web host, recommended you do a virus scan and then use an adware remover like Adaware.  They also recommended  this instructional guide for removing text enhancement malware from your computer.  

I'm probably tilting at virtual windmills here but I really want to smack these pirates down.  With my legal superpowers.  Which honestly probably aren't all that super when dealing with something like adware.   

But at least I can draw attention to the problem.  If readers know that these types of ads are generally foisted on website owners, many of whom are small business owners like myself, against their will, and that readers can make them go away pretty easily, then maybe they'll be less likely to tolerate them and more inclined to regularly scrub malware off their computers. 

But I'm going to keep looking at it.  If it's not illegal, it should be.  If I rented a billboard and in the middle of night somebody climbed a ladder and pasted an additional, completely different, ad up there, it would be trespass.  

I'll keep you posted.

When I was an attorney in government practice and clients showed up at my door or on the phone with questions, my customary answer was “Um . . . it depends.” It was such a consistent answer that clients began joking about me being sued by a certain adult hygiene product maker for trademark infringement.

Ha ha. Lawyers have been saying “it depends” a lot longer than people have been relying on said adult hygiene product. I don't know if practicing law is the second oldest profession but it's somewhere in the top ten.

And why does it depend? Better to ask “what does it depend upon?” Well, to start: 

• the events and people involved
• what you're trying to accomplish
• the consequences if you bend the rules to do it
• the damage that might occur if you don't do it
• the time you have to complete it
• the direction the political winds are blowing
• how much something bothers you
• how much it's going to cost to do something
• how much it's going to cost not to do something
• when things happened
• when things are expected to happen
• how badly you might piss off the powers that be if you do/do not do something
• how badly you've already pissed off the powers that be by doing/not doing something
• how badly you've already screwed up
• how badly, theoretically, you can screw up
• whether you've already contractually agreed to do or not do something
  
  

This is not an exhaustive list. It's not even close. There's so much a lawyer needs to know before giving an unequivocal answer, assuming such an answer is even possible in a particular situation. Which is why we always say, “it depends.”
 
People tend to think that lawyers learn some monolithic thing called “The Law.” Wrong. Lawyers learn how to spot issues, learn stuff really fast, and think down several paths at the same time. When you ask a lawyer a question and he or she gets that hazy look and says “well, it depends,” it's because there's a lot of different answers depending on a lot of stuff the lawyer doesn't know yet.