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Manchester United hospitality ads on KopTalk

Duncan Oldham — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:19:00 +0000

It came to my attention within the last few moments that advertisements relating to hospitality packages at Old Trafford were appearing on KopTalk today and I want to explain to you how that can happen. Naturally we would never accept such an advertising campaign.

Ads are usually served automatically by Google. They scan the words on every page and serve ads based on the content. If there is a page with the word ‘Arsenal’ in it for example, then Google will most likely serve ads associated to Arsenal. The word ‘hotel’ will see hotel ads displayed and so on. Advertisers can also target websites e.g. a company that sells football shirts may target football websites regardless of the specific content on it providing the website is football related.

Google do not approach content providers (websites such as ours) to discuss campaigns, they just add them and it is up to us to block advertisers we don’t like.

I hadn’t seen the ads as I’m not in the UK, which is where the complaints were coming from. However, I did connect to the internet using a UK VPN and saw the ads straight away. Now that I have located the destination URL (the website that the ads are promoting), I have now disabled them. It is possible to do that once you locate the offending ads. The only other obvious filter we have in place is for the website of The Sun newspaper. However, if The Sun were to launch a new campaign on another website for a side product, say Sun Cars or Sun Bingo or similar, then such ads could appear without our knowledge. If such was to happen, all you need do is contact us and we would immediately block the offending domains. We have always done this.

KopTalk wasn’t the only Liverpool FC website hit today by the Scum ads as some of our members reported that others had received criticism for running the ads (as people tend to speak out without knowing the facts first). We can’t speak for anyone else and it’s not up for us to tell them what to do but we have blocked the offending ads now that we have been made aware of them.

In future, if you see any ads that offend you, please bring them to our attention because an ad served (displayed) to you may not have been displayed to us. We won’t disable simple text ads relating to other clubs as this would be almost impossible to do but we will obviously block banners that show the scummy emblem of clubs like United.

Please note that once a particular ad/campaign is blocked, it can take Google “a few hours” to block them from appearing.

7 Months For Media To Catch-up On Henderson Exclusive

Duncan Oldham — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 19:40:12 +0000

7 months ago KopTalk published an exclusive on our members website… here’s a snippet from it… does it sound familiar?

EXCLUSIVE: Liverpool to offer £15million for midfielder

‘KOPTALK sources claim that Liverpool are to offer Sunderland £15million and the possibility of a player, for midfielder Jordan Henderson.

‘The 20-year-old attacking midfielder is attracting interest from numerous Premier League clubs and Sunderland are willing to sell (although publicly they may deny this), but they have mooted a figure of around £20million.

‘Liverpool scouts have watched him twice this season. Rafa also had him watched when he was loaned out to Coventry in 2009…’ - MEMBERS WEBSITE, 2ND NOV, 2010

JUNE 1ST 2011: 7 months later, The Independent, The Mirror, The Guardian, The Express, Daily Mail, Others, all report Liverpool are interested in signing Henderson.

Get KopTalk Membership…

Liverpool FC Podcast

Duncan Oldham — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 12:18:47 +0000

KopTalk’s Liverpool FC podcast could return this week after we took delivery of our new fancy microphone. It’s called a Blue Snowball… yes, it’s a bizarre name but as long as it does the job that’s all that matters.

Send us your emails about Liverpool FC matters and every email we receive will be read out on our first episode. Just email podcast @ koptalk.com and as soon as the first new episode goes live we will email you back to let you know.

Temporary Email Problem

Duncan Oldham — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 18:34:14 +0000

If you have emailed dunk @ koptalk.com in the last few days it is likely that your email has not been received due to an email problem that we have discovered since we made some changes to our server. As a result can we ask you to re-send your emails but to dunk @ koptalk.org until this minor problem is resolved. Apologies for the cock-up which we’ve just spotted. It should be resolved within a few hours.

Members Complimentary SMS Service – 2010/11

Duncan Oldham — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:15:39 +0000

Please be advised that we are currently updating the member’s SMS database. As a result we are currently unable to send out our free SMS alerts to members. This work should be finished by Sunday 11th July.

As a member you are entitled to free SMS alerts from KopTalk:

* Updates of major LFC news such as serious injury news, confirmed transfers

* Confirmed team and bench on all competitive first team fixtures

* Half time scores from all competitive first team fixtures

* Full time scores from all competitive first team fixtures

SMS alerts are available worldwide but are subject to your carrier delivering them. Once included on the free service, if you do not receive alerts on match days for example, you should submit a support ticket by our support website at koptalk.info stating your username, mobile number including international dialing code and your carrier/network provider.

Every summer we update the database to remove former members and add new ones. If you join outside the summer it doesn’t matter, we will still add you to the database. Just contact support with the same information as detailed above.

Not a member? Join here.