That's an interesting copy-paste fail. I wonder what their development process is that someone managed to edit the template on production with presumably no testing.
It looks like the idea here was to include the raw gist in a <script> tag, but that didn't quite happen. Both the gist and the JS file that inserts it include references to Krux, possibly http://www.krux.com/, a "cloud-based data management platform".
That JavaScript looks related to serving or tracking ads. The code makes reference to DART (part of DoubleClick) and Ad Ops, and it's on the same part of the page as all of their other analytics tools (Google Analytics, SiteCatalyst, etc). Comcast is probably not in direct control of the code, and may be in the position that they can't get rid of it without adversely impacting their ad revenue stream.
15 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 48.9 ms ] threadhttp://www.nbcudigitaladops.com/hosted/js/eonline_com_header...
https://www.nbcudigitaladops.com/hosted/js/fandango_com_head...
Which contain this:
//FOR COMCAST: Krux Interchange - Krux Writes to Cookie UPDATED:2012-12-14 15:58:46
document.write(unescape('https%3A%2F%2Fgist.github.com%2F9cf2d06784a93f1975cb'));
No doubt someone will be working to update it again either tonight or tomorrow.
It's added from http://www.nbcudigitaladops.com/hosted/js/eonline_com_header...:
which is, in turn, inserted into the document by http://www.nbcudigitaladops.com/hosted/global_header.js; excerpt: It looks like the idea here was to include the raw gist in a <script> tag, but that didn't quite happen. Both the gist and the JS file that inserts it include references to Krux, possibly http://www.krux.com/, a "cloud-based data management platform"."Insert this into the header of your websites" and someone took it too literally?
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.nbcudigitaladops...
http://imgur.com/rxIhL
Thanks a ton for all the eyes out there that helped us find this one. It's great when the community has your back.
Proof one more time of the dangers of making production changes on a Friday afternoon, and that there's no substitute for manual monitoring of a site.
Derek Brans Technology Krux