New automatic links to websites

[ToothGah]

Just wanted to tell you lovely peeps about this as it gave me cause for concern yesterday.

MN has started making certain mentions of brands link to their websites (it seems like it's intermittent though, or if you use an adblocker you might not be able to see this).

So for example:

Boden
Elizabeth Arden
Victorias Secret
eBay
Ann Summers
Asda
House of Fraser
John Lewis
Marks and Spencer
Sainsburys

If any of those show as links to you (they might not for everyone) well, I didn't make them links.

I think it's a shame as I look for links in people's posts on here as they are actually recommending a certain item of clothing or make up or accessory.

Now we'll have links to websites that posters haven't put in themselves.

There's an explanation here.

Thoughts?

Ahh, thanks for explaining that. I mentioned a shop beginning with B, and it appeared as a link, and i was confused as I didn't remember doing it. I apologised as it made my post confusing, because if anyone clicked on it, there was no product to explain my post, only a homepage. Mm, do they get revenue from it, is that why they are doing it?

Yes, it's for revenue. I do understand that this is a free website and that they need to make money.

I just wish these links were perhaps a different colour - so you can tell if someone meant to make the link or not.

I agree I figured it out yesterday but truly annoying. I will be clicking less not more.

Yes posted about this yesterday when M and S (full name)became highlighted.

Only Victorias s e c r e t and sainsb u r y s came up as links for me.

Another link here about this.

I'm more unhappy the more I think about it and others are too :(

Oh that explains it. I thought the random links to home pages were some kind of break in the particular company's website - so not great advertising for them really!

Having them in a different colour, as ToothGah suggested would be better - we could all ignore them then, which I suppose would defeat the object of them really.

I would prefer them to be a different colour too, otherwise we will just have to abbreviate all shop names

TP (tpshop)
DP or Dotty P's (Dorothy P3rkins)
JL or (J0hn L3wis)
M&S
Bden......?

It's ok though, we can just mistype them, in the same way that you do to get round a swear filter.

We'll just have to come up with a list of standard substitutions, like the acronym list, to avoid it. Starting with Twatrose??

Yeah, we could all make a list here, keep updating it as we go.

MN have had a rethink and the links have been switched off for now.