Please, Digg -- Spare My The North Cyprus Property Ads

Minor rant here, about being sick and tired of seeing the same pitch for North Cyprus property over and over again on Digg. Can't Google give them any better ad inventory for UK visitors to see? And while I'm ranting, what's with the "free" XBox 360 ad that Google's allowing to slip past the quality police?

or if there's not set of ads delivered up by Google, you probably get the always popular pitch for the Digg podcast:

Now me, I'm over in the UK. And I'm virtually certain this means I'm getting treated to this favorite ad that most people in the US probably don't see:

I see this ad all the time. I've seen it day in, day out for weeks. I've seen it so many times I wish that Google would have another link next to that "Ads by Google" link called "Never show me this ad again." Then I could banish this ad from my sight forever.

I've got no problem with North Cyprus. I actually love Northern Cyprus. I was there on vacation back in 2002. My in laws were stationed in Cyprus back in the 60s as part of the British forces and talked about there time there often. One year, we went back with them. Went to Northern Cyprus because unlike the south, it's far less developed. I wanted a better sense of how things used to be like. It's beautiful. Here's the harbor city of Kyrenia, or Gime using its Turkish name, from one of my photos:

Heck, I might even be interested in Northern Cyprus property some day. But that would have to come after the entire divided island of Cyprus issue gets resolved. For those not up on the island, it's been divided since 1974 into the Greek-dominated and internationally recognized southern Republic Of Cyprus and the Turkish-dominated and generally unrecognized Turkish Republic Of Northern Cyprus in the north. Wikipedia gives some history here.

This leads me to those ads being UK targeted. As a former UK colony, the island is popular with Brits. Brits also love to get in on housing booms. Property in the south is far more expensive than in the north. So there's been a wave of Brits wanting to beat the "land rush" and buy in the north.

The problem is that some of that northern property was formerly owned by people who fled to the south. And since Cyprus is now part of the European Union, that means Brits buying property could find themselves vulnerable to lawsuits in cases where title is unclear. Here's one article about a couple that lost an appeal in 2005 brought against them through UK courts. Here's the UK government warning about such purchases last year. Here's a collection of some related articles.

So much as I liked Northern Cyprus, I'm not going to be buying property. And I'd really like to see some other ads on Digg, just for a change of pace.

A side note here. I've visited two divided cities in my life: Berlin and Nicosia, on Cyprus. Berlin, of course, is no longer divided. Indeed, six months after I first visited it with the wall up, I was back during the New Year's celebration after the wall had come down. What a contrast. I'm looking forward to seeing how it has changed since then, when I finally return to the city in March.

Nicosia remains divided. Visiting that city took me back to what seemed hard to imagine ever happened, the division of Berlin.

Finally, I leave Cyprus to discuss the Xbox 360. Let's go back to that Cyprus ad:

I had to chuckle. Are you REALLY going to send me a free Xbox for answering five questions? That's the promise, and it's the type of promise that gets someone like Ben Edelman upset over fake "free ads," as I wrote about recently.

Just for fun, I decided to see how it played out. I arrived at a page asking for my email address. I gave it a fake one. Then I had to enter my "shipping address." I gave it a fake one. Then I got to this:

Offer? What's the deal about offers? I thought I just had to do a survey, right? Down at the bottom of the page, you're told:

So not only do I have to participate in an offer -- which the ad never mentioned -- but then I've got to "Refer Friends" to manage to get to the mystery "Level 3" for my Xbox. What did that ad say again?

So much for answering a 5 question survey. Well, I've got an Xbox already. And a 360. And Viva Piñata for it rocks. But my Wii rocks more. Someday I'll write more about them, too!

It's hard to believe with Cypress. I have some Greek friends here in the US (Hellenic Greek and not Greek American) with ties to families in cypress. For them has "mandatory military service" a different meaning.. close to what it means to an Israeli.

Like you said, the border strip that divides the island is like the iron curtain back in the 60's (not the "more relaxed" one of the 80's).

What is the difference? West Germany (FRG) was member of NATO for military aid and part of the "marshal plan", East Germany (GDR)was member of the Warsaw Pact for military support and COMECON (RGW) for economic support. Two conflicting Alliances military and economic.

Now Greece is member of NATO and so is Turkey. They are technically at War with each other. They agreed to a cease fire (which gets violated from time to time and leaves a young Greek private dead equipped with a assault rifle filled with blanks (standard NATO issue), shot by Turkish assault rifle filled with real ammo (also standard NATO issue)).

Greece is part of the European Union and Turkey applies to join it every now and then to be turned down because one of the EU members makes use of its right to VETO. I wonder which EU Member that is.. ;)

What happens if the cease fire ends for whatever stupid reason and open War breaks out again? Based on NATO mandate are the member countries obligated to support a NATO member that is being attacked. In this case Turkey and Greece would be under attack. How does that work out? Send east German born privates to Greece and west German born to Turkey that they can "shoot it out" together with the Greeks and Turks?

Makes you wish that you would have filled out the offers and "convinced" a few friends that ponzi schemes are not the same as pyramid schemes.

That way I would have gotten myself a nice XBOX 360, gambled all day and night to the point that the army would have rejected me because of "RSI".

It is easier to cope with the credit card with 0 days grace period and 25% interest, the subscription for the brushes to the electric toothbrush I don't have, which does not get me out of the 24 month term I must have agreed to and the other 3 offers I still don't understand. hehe.

Well, see it from the bright side. Finally "nice" and "big" fireworks again in the beautiful mediterranean sea. Take a front row seat in Crete or get a cheap seat in the back in poor Sicily.

Ah, Europe, the old countries, which is obviously not related (at least not proportional) to the amount of wisdom like everybody wants you make to believe.

asalamu alaykum or eirini ymin my friends

Comment by Carsten Cumbrowski | January 11, 2007 6:03 AM

Lol not very bright.

Bet a few Greek Cypriot's in the uk have steam coming out of there ears seeing those adds.

Comment by Neuro | January 12, 2007 1:36 PM

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