any one know how to get around this site www.consumersurveypanels.com ?

That sounds great. You must have Snow Leopard or earlier, cause Lion also saves appliction start in a folder too. So you have to clean that too.

Actually it happened a few hours after upgrading to Lion. The offending page DID come back up with the Mac off the network, but the option to clear the cache was not grayed out like it was when it was on the network.

oh good to know, what do you think this is, malware, trojan.

It has to modify Safari setting. Apple is kinda keeping hush about this.

I had this happen today while browsing in Safari on my new iMac. I had not even clicked onto a link.

I was unable to reboot or shut down without unplugging the power cord. When I would power back on, the box was still there.

Fortunately, I have Firefox, so was able to access this website for help. After reading this page, I unplugged my ethernet connection (I'm not using WiFi), then clicked on the "OK" button, which did take me to the CustomerSurveysPanel website (despite the fact that my internet was unplugged). From there, my Safari options were now restored and I was able to totally reset Safari. Thanks to all for your tips. The box is gone. For now...

same thing happened to me. i opened up safari and was immediately redirected to a consumer survey site with a dialog box that only gave me the option of hitting okay. not having another web browser installed, and needing to send off a time sensitive email, i finally hit okay in the dialogue box. i'm pretty sure i now have malware or a virus on my computer. any suggestions for detecting and removing these? i am running the latest version of lion. would a reinstall of lion take care of this? thanks.

As long as u did not enter your password your ok

Delete all safari cache and preferences and application autosave folder contents.

Shame apple does not recognize a hole n Lion that allows this

thanks for the help. i was not asked for my password at the time and so didn't enter anything. a few hours later itunes asked for my password, any chance this could be related? itunes and my apple tv have since asked for my password a few times each over the last couple days. my wireless network (run through an aiport extreme) and computer have also been acting strange. my computer, for instance, has been randomly awaking from sleep mode unprompted. i downloaded and ran macscan, flush and clam av, and macscan and clam av came back with clean reports, so perhaps this is just a coincidence. also, i'm not finding the application autosave folder. any ideas where it may be located? thanks again for the help.

also, not finding safari preferences under user/library/preferences and not finding the safari cache file (though i cleared this right through the safari menu). spotlight doesn't bring up the files either. any ideas as to where they are? thanks.

If you are running Lion, the library folder is hidden.

http://tarastips.net/2011/05/show-hidden-library-folder-in-mac-osx-lion/

I was in the Apple Store today and explained this issue to one of the salesmen. He explained that this is malware, not a virus or trojan horse. He said that your computer is not harmed by this popup in any way, even if you clocked "okay." It's basically a phishing scheme, so you're safe as long as you didn't give any personal info, such as email address or password, credit card number, etc.

You should ask hlim or her how does it change system preference files In a hidden library folder of lion if only malware.

I can see malware with a tad of Trojan. Maybe a new variant since no one has the correct answer, even Apple.

I did not know to ask that question, but perhaps someone else will ask and post the answer here.

There is a new variant of this malware just discovered. If you type or misspell the name of a major electronic website like bestbuy, I think i entered betbuy. it will say you won an iPad 2 and now there are 2 choices.

THIS IS TERRIBLE AND UNCALLED FOR

I HAD TO FORCE QUIT SAFARI, THE ONLY WAY TO CLOSE THE APP

I have onlx installed and did an Internet clean. worked to get rid of this.

APPLE YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABUT THIS, IT IS DISABLING ALL MENU OPTIONS, HOW CAN THEY DO THIS.

PS

this only happens in Safari, so I have switched to FireFox until this is acknowledge.

In FireFox, i can select who I will accept a cookie from and not allow a redirect. I wish Safari would have a block on a redirect.

So just to reiterate, clicking okay does not download malware or a virus? Clicking okay simply starts the "survey", and so long as you reset safari and empty the cache at this point (i.e. before taking the "survey") your computer is unharmed?