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?

I’d say most people who visit Digg see ads at the top of the page like this:

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:

See that Xbox ad below it, down there on the right? Here, let’s zoom in:

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!