Broadband News

Tiscali’s new money maker

(17-07-07) - Tiscali (www.tiscali.co.uk) has received complaints from customers following the introduction of a new “enhanced error page”.

The new page, which has been running on a trial since the start of the year redirects customers to a Tiscali advertising page when they type in an incorrect web address.

This means that rather than displaying the usual “page not found” message that we have all become used to, Tiscali uses incorrect URLs as an advertising opportunity offering customers natural search results relevant to the URL they typed, as well as online dating and ringtones.

Although complaints have been registered on the ISP’s forum, prompting the company to offer an opt-out clause, a spokeswoman for Tiscali said: “If a customer mis-types a URL, the page they will see will inform them that an error has occurred but also offer a number of natural and paid for suggested links which they can choose to click on, or of course they can just re-type the URL.

“A customer can choose to opt out of this but since the trial we have received very few complaints so we believe it to be useful to our customers rather than an annoyance,” she added.

However, Chris Eagle, BroadbandChoices.co.uk commercial manager, added: “There are probably many more people who find this a nuisance but have not actually complained, most of which probably don’t realise that they can opt-out of Tiscali’s ‘enhanced browsing’.

“Tiscali’s new re-direct could allow more spam to get through to users because their anti-spam software might not be able to identify incorrect URLs, so it’s not surprising that when other companies have tried similar money-makers in the past, they have gone on to abandon them.”

Related article - Tiscali Broadband