6 Responses to “Click to donate $1 to a fund for victims of domestic violence”

1. Daran Writes:
   February 5th, 2008 at 6:03 pm

   How it works is that Allstate foundation wants to give $300,000 to the EJTA fund, but rather than just donating the money, they get 300,000 people to view their advert, some of whom will click through to Allstate’s website.

   It’s a way of getting a larger marketting bang from your corporate-philanthropy buck.

   Sure, go ahead and click. Then stick a hand in your pocket, dig out your own dollar, and donate that to something worthwhile too.

   By the way, they have an open redirect which is probably being exploited by spammers even as we speak.

   This comment was written by Daran.
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2. Daran Writes:
   February 5th, 2008 at 6:22 pm

   ha, fine spammer I’d make. I can’t even get the redirect to work.

   Let’s try again

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3. Ampersand Writes:
   February 5th, 2008 at 8:05 pm

   I don’t understand. What is, and what’s the point of, an open redirect?

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4. Daran Writes:
   February 6th, 2008 at 6:00 am

   If you hover over the link in my second comment, you’ll see that the url starts with www.clicktoempower.com, but if you click on it you’ll see that it transfers back to this page. That’s a redirect. The point is to enable the website to track which outbound links visitors click.

   Unfortunately they haven’t included a check to verify that the referrer is a legitimate page from the site. This means that spammers can use it to make it look like they’re sending you to clicktoempower.com, a legitimate site, when they’re actually sending you somewhere else.

   This comment was written by Daran.
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5. Daran Writes:
   February 6th, 2008 at 7:04 am

   Well I got to ask the question. Is it a fund for the “victims of domestic violence”? Or only some of them?

   The language on the clicktoempower site is mostly gender neutral, but www.nnedv.org often uses “domestic violence” and “violence against women” interchangeably, or otherwise assumes that victims are female. This is an implicit denial of male victimisation, and acts to disempower male victims.

   I was in two minds about clicking. The funding helps women, of course and isn’t per se harmful to men, even if it doesn’t benefit them. Since I’m in favour of helping female victims of DV, this weighed in favour of clicking.

   What harms men is the the way the issue is framed. Clicking would encourage this framing, which weighed against clicking.

   I did click in the end, but the dollar (actually a pound) from my pocket will be going elsewhere.

   This comment was written by Daran.
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6. StefanU Writes:
   February 6th, 2008 at 11:13 am

   I’m so glad I can help without creating a bank account.

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