If you’re using Internet Explorer, and visiting any non-AOL-owned site today, you’ll likely see the MSN “butterfly” ads. Adrian Holovaty expands on a topic raised on online-news: a story on MSN and AOL running at The New York Times’s technology section also has those MSN ads.

Interestingly, I’ve yet to see them appear on that page using Netscape 4.x or Mozilla, suggesting AOL’s browsers are not being targetted, but AOL users are (since most use a browser based on IE).

Since I only use IE for testing purposes now — and Mozilla tends to not display those page-hijacking ads — when I do take that browser into the wild, I’m always surprised see how distracting many online ads are. Another reason to love Mozilla.

In the “Wouldn’t it Be Great” category: Vin Crosbie, in a posting to online-news, says he’s been hearing rumours that next month MasterCard and Visa will start handling small (micro?) transactions online.