It's not their fault when you receive spam, or when you receive annoying pop-up adverts. You might think that's self evident. But not, apparently, to some internet users, according to a friend I know who works for the W3C.

He's recently found that he's been spending time fielding comments and complaints from slightly annoyed internet users who've received junk emails, or unwanted pop-ups. They look at the source code of the page, and right at the beginning, they see the Document Type Definition, or DTD line, with it's reference to W3C and a w3.org URL.

And then they leap to the conclusion that because there's a URL from w3.org in the spam, or pop-up, then they must be the people who made it appear. Some are particularly insistent, and one only relented when it was suggested he look at the source of his own website, and ponder whether or not the W3C had created it for him.

So, before you look for URLs to complain to in spam and pop-ups, think and don't vent your spleen at the wrong people.

Indeed  - but then not every webmaster puts that DTD line in the site code !  even though W3C advises that you should !

The problem is more and more people these days consider themselves to be experts, and know everything about computers, when in reality they only actually know slightly more than a noob.  The problem with this is they can be quite dangerous with what they sometimes break!

Phil