Yay! Yet another way to spam!

While buying something online today, I was presented with a popup asking me if I wanted to chat live with a representative about what looked like a loyalty program.  I went ahead and clicked, even though my spidey-sense told me not to.

PhineasTaylor is typing ... 

Hello there!  Thank you for taking a moment to chat with me about the wonderful opportunity of joining buyeverythingthroughus.com.  With buyeverythingthroughus.com, etc., etc.

OK, a little boilerplate to get things going.  Hang on though, there's more

PhineasTaylor is typing ...

Buyeverythingthroughus.com will improve your life in every possible way.  It will make you rich and famous.  It will cure dandruff and halitosis.  Children will love you.  Adults will want to be you.  Your friends will adore you.  Your enemies will envy you and then slink away in shame and fear, etc., etc.

Right ... anything else?

PhineasTaylor is typing ...

This P.T. person sure types a lot.

Buyeverythingthroughus.com will cure hunger.  It will bring about world peace and universal prosperity.  Yankees and Red Sox fans will embrace each other with love in their eyes [well, maybe it didn't go quite that far].

Since this is ostensibly a person typing, it's coming across slowly enough that there's plenty of time to go googling and find out that buyeverythingthroughus.com is about what you'd expect it is.

Knowing all that, what do you say to this exciting opportunity?

I said "No, thank you" and dismissed the chat window.  I couldn't help wondering, though, whether whoever coded this up had the chutzpah to submit a paper on an exciting new "intelligent agent".