is the website tags.bluekai.com fraudulent or a virus of some sort?

If you are being redirected to this site when you try to visit other sites, that's a problem. Not a virus, though, as there is no known malware capable of infecting an iPad that hasn't been jailbroken.

The issue is either a hacked wireless router or a problem with your internet service provider's domain name servers. See:

How to manage a hacked wireless router

I have this happening with the game Draw 2 on a brand new iPad. While drawing, I am sporadically redirected to Safari and a URL with tags.bluekai..com in it but there is no content. Very annoying malware. How did I get this and now can I get rid of it? I didn't think new iPads could get malware.

That is an issue you will need to take up with the developer of Draw 2. It is directing you to that site, probably through in-game ads.

This isn't malware.

I'm having the same issue while playing Zynga's Scramble With Friends on an iPhone 5. It happens when I don't even have my browser running. I will touch the screen to make a move on the game, and suddenly Safari will launch and try to connect with this URL: tags.bluekai.com (which doesn't load or shows up as a blank page.) I then have to return to the game app in order to continue playing. Sometimes it happens so much I can't complete my move in the game.

What is this? By the way, this used to happen with some other URL (can't recall it exactly but it had some string including "connextion" in it as I recall). This bluekai URL is new as of a few days ago.

I've seen many other people report similar behavior with Words With Friends (also by Zynga, also with an ad-supported free version). This is something you need to take up with Zynga.

Hi Everyone,

Could you please send the full URLs you are seeing containing the BlueKai tags? We will work to undo the bad user experience you are going through. Thanks.

The full URL that I've been directed to is:

tags.blukai.com

This is the precise address. This particular redirect only started recently (perhaps this week). Before that, I was getting redirected to some other URL, that I can no longer remember, but it contained the string "connexion".

Hope this helps.

Thanks PamelaZ. Ultimately we need the full tag so we can isolate the advertising partner who is firing it. We are working in parallel on other leads to isolate the incident.

Yeah, it's really weird. And I can't work out any pattern about where on the screen I'm touching when it's deployed. But it happens while playing a game that requires drawing with the fingertip on the screen to connect adjacent letters (Scramble). It sometimes happens immediately (the moment I touch the screen to start my move). The browser launches and the URL locater field populates with "tags.blukai.com" and displays a screen with no content.

Thanks for looking into it...

Pamela

Here's the URL I captured last night:

http://tags.bluekai.com/site/17702?ret=html&phint=id%3D0%3AE11797F1-2D69-4543-8C 8D-969CED1E3DE9&phint=idfa%3DE11797F1-2D69-4543-8C8D-969CED1E3DE9&phint=__bk_k%3 D&phint=__bk_l%3Dapplewebdata%3A%2F%2F7AC46E9B-34E1-4AF7-A1C9-916CBACF6B79&limit =4&bkfpd=TF1;015;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;Mozilla;Netscape;5.0%20%28iPad%3B%20CPU%20 OS%207_0_6%20like%20Mac%20OS%20X%29%20AppleWebKit/537.51.1%20%28KHTML%2C%20like% 20Gecko%29%20Mobile/11B651;20030107;undefined;true;;true;iPad;undefined;Mozilla/ 5.0%20%28iPad%3B%20CPU%20OS%207_0_6%20like%20Mac%20OS%20X%29%20AppleWebKit/537.5 1.1%20%28KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko%29%20Mobile/11B651;en-us;ISO-8859-1;7ac46e9b-34 e1-4af7-a1c9-916cbacf6b79;undefined;undefined;undefined;undefined;true;true;1396 418342604;-8;June%207%2C%202005%20at%209%3A33%3A44%20PM%20PDT;768;1024;;;;;;;7;4 80;420;April%201%2C%202014%20at%2010%3A59%3A02%20PM%20PDT;32;748;1024;0;0;;;;;;; ;;;QuickTime%20Plug-in%7CThe%20QuickTime%20Plug-in%20allows%20you%20to%20view%20 a%20wide%20variety%20of%20multimedia%20content%20in%20web%20pages.%20For%20more% 20information%2C%20visit%20the%20%3CA%20HREF%3D%22http%3A//www.apple.com/quickti me%22%3EQuickTime%3C/A%3E%20Web%20site.;;;;;;;;;20;&bknms=1,768102432,1396418342 586,420,20aec242,c56ef98,1&r=96222875

Thanks you desertmonkey! We have identified the partner and are going to work on resolving this ASAP.

Thanks everyone for reporting these problems and helping us out!

I'm having the same issues as above with scramble with friends. However, after looking at desertmonkey's captured URL, I found it a little different then the one I've seen.....

http://tags.blukai.com/site/17702?ret=html&phint=id%3D0%3AF0816FEC-447C-4BBF-870 5-F5A2AF6073E1&phint=idF9%3DF0816F........

That's all I can see on my iPad. I've tried to copy it to paste and I can't seem to do that for some reason. It looks ver similar to desertmonkey's but with some different numbers and letters.

Please help...I've cleared the history and cache already. That helped for a bit....I was able to play a whole session of games without being redirected but later in the day it came back.

Hi Hercchick,

Thanks for sharing the link. The 17702 is the key value I need to identify the partner who is firing the tags. We have requested them to pull the tags and hope it is done by Thursday morning.

Hi Everyone,

The partner pulled the tags this morning. If you are still experiencing any issues, please continue to post on this thread.

Dear Unseized,

Thank you for your work on this. I did play Scramble this morning and had no incidents of it. I also had written to Zynga support and got immediate and thoughtful responses from them about this saying they'd look into it. This is quoted from their communication:

"My name is Jefferson, and I'm here to help. I understand that you're currently being redirected to a site during game play under tags.bluekai.com.

Thanks for the heads up. We have now flagged this issue that you're experiencing and we'll be investigating as to what is causing this matter.

We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. Meanwhile, do check from time to time since the game could be restored back to its working condition at any moment so you don’t have to wait longer than expected. Thanks again. "

Meanwhile, I'm trying to understand a little better what all this means. You referred to a "partner" who has "pulled the tags". That seems to indicate that this was something deliberate done by someone you're aware of. Was it something Zynga was doing? And what was the intent? Can you explain this a little?

Ever curious,

Pamela