Its the same for Germany. If I want to use fontshop.com the url will directed to fontshop.de. But if I try it for a third time the .com domain will coming up.

—astype.de—

Have/had this problem over here in Germany too, whenever i wanted to go to fontshop.com i got redirected to fontshop.de. Being grown up (well, almost) i usually know where i want to go and why (much better preview option. in this case…).
For me it always worked to just enter the FS.com-url again after having been redirected to FS.de, hit enter, done.

And yes, i find it truly annoying too, the internet is an open, international kind of thing and websites that redirect me elsewhere simply because of my IP-address or browser language are somewhat out of order in terms of usability, compliance with user expectations, etc. Plus it just doesn’t fit in the general picture i have of FS as a very helpful, customer oriented company.

I truly hope FS will do something about that, soon.

A double-click on the URL will do the trick.

Ralf

Hey, Ralf, can you give us a list of, let’s say, three exact browsing or computing environments where one may “double-click” on a URL?

Can you explain what that does compared to, say, clicking on a URL?

—
Joe Clark
http://joeclark.org/

Hey, Ralf, can you give us a list of, let’s say, three exact browsing or computing environments where one may “double-click” on a URL?

I can’t. In HTML there is no other use of a double-click, than bypassing a FontShop redirect. ;-)

But it works for me in any browser or newsreader. I don’t know enough about FontShops redirect mechanism to tell you why this works. Maybe it’s just a bug and the redirect doesn’t work if you fire multiple calls to the website, or maybe they included this trick on purpose as a backdoor, so the guys in Berlin can look at their international sites once in a while ...

Ralf

Alex,

We feel your pain. FontShop is working on a solution for keeping content open to all, while still directing customers to their local FontShop when necessary (purchasing). Unfortunately, this will take some time. In the meantime, Ralf’s trick should work.

Stephen, what’s speaking against purchasing a font in another country? Via credit card this should be no problem, shouldn’t it?

The FSI network is organized so that local FontShops can serve (and sell to) their own region. This comes with some drawbacks, but mostly positives. Where there is a local FontShop, marketing materials and support services are appropriate to each region’s needs and language. Tangible goods cost less to ship. Events, like TYPO Berlin, strengthen and engage the local design community.

Thanks Stephen, I see that this is useful in some way.
But concerning fonts (and the above stated articles, see as well e.g. http://typophile.com/node/34986) I think this policy works counterproductively. At least I have meanwhile ended up buying the fonts/font families I needed at other vendors.

Double clicking or hitting “enter” several times doesn’t work at my computer either. But alas, there seems to be hope :-)

Fontshop installs various cookies, which may also be required for installing spy software to find out the fonts installed on your hard disk.

The first cookie installed looks like this

cookie_test please_accept_for_session www.fontshop.com/ ...

On computers with high security browsers disabling spy attacks, the double clicking trick will not work.

Spy software, Uli? Seriously? Having worked at FontShop and been involved directly in oversight of web development projects there, I can attest to the fact that trying to find out what fonts users have installed on their hard drives was never on the extremely long dev wishlist. The good people at FontShop have more important things to think about, like how to market typefaces, service customers, and take care of designers who choose to work with them.

Cookies are a fact of internet life, and not typically intended for nefarious purposes (at least when browsing the online shops of reputable companies).

With regard to the issue of being directed to your home country/region’s website for font purchases, the folks at FontShop have struggled with that and are really trying to build a good user experience while adhering to contractual agreements with the various local FontShops. The global market is not always as easy to implement as we would like, but rest assured, these people really *are* trying.

Fontshop installs various cookies, which may also be required for installing spy software to find out the fonts installed on your hard disk.

It occurred to me the other day that Cockamamie is a weird word. Try saying it out loud ten times real fast. Even if you can do it, it is still funny. Go ahead and try it.

The purpose of cookies is to hand over information from one pageview to the next (or one visit to the next visit). This is necessary because the client (browser) and the server have no persistent connection.
If a website wants to monitor the user’s fonts (which is possible), cookies won’t help.

Ralf

You correctly state at your website

http://www.fonts.info/local-fonts-in-html/

“With Flash a webdesigner can access the user’s fonts with the command getFontList();”

Cookies and Flash are only the first step for Linotype, etc.

The important step is to embed into your fonts

- your first, your middle and your last name,
- your street name and your street number,
- your city and your zip code and your country,
- your email address and your phone number,
- your bank account and credit card number,
- your private identification number

(for sample see http://www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/lino17.pdf)

so that all other commercial websites that you visit can easily access all your private data by simply reading the fonts on your computer.

The fonts personalized by the Linotype method are labeled by hackers as “PIF fonts” (“Private Identification Fonts”), as such PIF fonts can be easily used for gleaning all your private data.

so that all other commercial websites that you visit can easily access all your private data by simply reading the fonts on your computer.

This sounds like a horrible conspiracy!

It would seem that if they could do this, then more malicious things could be done just as easily. A slippery slope...

I’m glad you are watching out for us, because it would never have entered my mind to think of this.

This sounds like a horrible conspiracy!

And like most other conspiracy theories it’s nothing but hot air.
There is no way to load the users’ fonts from their machines (just font names) and so there is no way of reading information from within a font. You know all that. I don’t understand why you invent such horror stories.

And like most other conspiracy theories it’s nothing but hot air.

What a relief! If the people out to get us could just start listing fonts or documents, or whatever inside of folders, and rewriting them, then mischief would have few boundaries.

I shudder to think...

Fontplayer:

Ever heard of hackers? No? Then look at you own site:

see http://www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/fontplay1.gif

At your site you deceive your visitors by telling them:

Free Fonts
Download Thousands of Free Fonts Here

However you redirect them to this hacker website

see http://www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/fontplay2.gif

It does not offer “thousands of free fonts”, as you make your visitors believe, but is a hacker website.

Are you serious?
That link is a google ad, fontplayer has no control what goes there. Also it’s not a “hacker” website, it’s just a site set up purely to garnish advertising revenue.

I think it’s nice you’re trying to keep an eye out for bad font related behavior, but you’re also kind of ridiculous. And you give hackers WAY too much credit.

Fontshop.com has a drop down region selection menu, why do you even need the auto redirect. You could easily make that more prevalent and add it to the european country pages. And if people in Austria want to read and purchase in English, then maybe add the region selector in the shopping cart section as well. Like before you can pay you have to choose your region, so you can still retain the marketing information.

I’m curious as to why the layouts for each european country is different.

That link is a google ad, fontplayer has no control what goes there.

That is correct. I think I can blackball a site if I want to take the time. Maybe if devil-worship was involved, I would probably spring into action.

Btw, in case it didn’t come through, my previous comments in this thread were said trying to keep a straight face, so to speak.

We have a saying here in the US, “Chill, dude!”

It’s because I hacked your account and removed any writing that showed sarcasm :)

I shudder to think...

When an American visits a hairdresser’s shop, and when the hairdresser, without permission, tattoos the American’s postal address and his bank account and credit card number on his forehead, the American does not object, because he thinks that this is part of the hairdresser’s EULA.

When an American visits a font seller’s website, and when the font seller, without permission, embeds the American’s address etc. into the fonts, as shown above, the American does not object, because he thinks that this is part of the font seller’s EULA.

I think you should change hairdressers.

Uli, you are quickly moving up the list of Typophiles that I’d like to spend a day with. Even if you aren’t pulling our leg, I suspect it would be interesting.

It has been my experience that tattooists and hairdressers rarely rent stations at the same salons.
Maybe it’s different elsewhere.

We know that font shops hack your postal address and your bank account and credit card number into the fonts on your computer, as shown above.

Now we see that the headlines of Typophile threads are manipulated too. For the original headline see the Google cache or see here

http://www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/fontshop-old.gif

Font shops make you believe that they do no hack fonts by inserting your postal and email address etc. into your fonts and that they stick to their “privacy policy”. If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.

Now we see that the headlines of Typophile threads are manipulated too.

Hackers just edited this post to point out that it was probably to make it more considerate for a valued sponsor of Typophile.

font player.... ahahahahah I see you play along very well... :-)

I see you play along very well... :-)

Yes, but is is probably wise not to get me going. I haven’t even begun to warm up. When it comes to goofing off, few lights shine as bright, or are as fervant in their commitment to excellence.
; )