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up vote 6 down vote favorite

When checking my Google analytics, I noticed 4 strange events. Their category is softonicmm and action STATS_SITE_IRRELEVANT. I'm not triggering these events.

Has anyone seen similar events or have any additional information about them?

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Odd...if you segment the event by hostname/page is it coming from your own site or somewhere else? – user25473 Oct 10 '12 at 8:54
Seems to be coming from my site, as the only hostname when segmented is my own. When segmented by page, it's coming from various pages. – acw Oct 10 '12 at 9:12
When segmented by Browser, all (6) are using Internet Explorer 8.0 – acw Oct 10 '12 at 9:15
Is this a dangerous thing? How can it be stopped? – user25482 Oct 10 '12 at 11:34
I have the same problem. In my case it seems to have started Oct 3rd, 2012 and ended Oct 9th. It peaked on Oct 6th with a total of 5 events. – JBCP Oct 16 '12 at 4:57

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

This was a rogue internet explorer toolbar that injected javascript code into the apges the users were seeing and causing these events. Only affected internet explorer users who had that toolbar. This issue has been fixed as the company responsible for the toolbar has patched their software to avoid the events from leaking out.

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up vote 2 down vote

I see the softonicmm event for 5 days now in our Google Analytics. Maybe a new form of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referer_spam

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Yes, same here. – glebm Oct 31 '12 at 1:08

protected by Community♦ Oct 10 '12 at 11:37

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