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You Will Read Our Ads, And Like It
sheister writes "over at myciti.com they are asking members to agree to a new set of terms before using the service, including "'..we may display advertisements and promotions of all kinds on our web site(s) and you agree not to disable any technology required or utilized to serve or display such advertising;' Has anyone else noticed pushy Terms and Conditions like this on the web?"
Now here is the issue: Who pays for the content on the net?
I know in my case I pay my access fee for X amount of bandwidth potential, and I pay by the GB for my colo'd servers at ColoGuys ( - shameless plug for John and Co). In fact, I charge ( or rather my company charges) for access to our servers. As part of my personal connection I have personal and organizational websites set up. Now I choose to make those freely available to anyone at any time. Why? because I want people to come by and take a look see. However, if I make my money off of a site ( as I do with my colo'd servers), I have the right to restrict access. In this case they are wiling to provide content in exchange for marketing. They can do this, I think it is a poor choice and will drive people away, but it is their choice. Think what would happen to slashdot if al advertising were taken away. Would it become subscription only? If not who picks up the tab? I say just don't use the service if you dont want to abide by the terms.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Unfortunatly if part of the reason you are blocking ads is bandwidth conservation then banner blinds doesn't do you nearly as much good as not loading them in the first place. This is one of those things like not loading images at all, or only loading images from the originating web server etc. Of course those have thier own issues. For example many sites use dedicated servers for image serving like images.slashdot.org. Then again, if you are trying to conserve bandwidth you probably could care less if the pages standard graphics load either.
Nope.
You're deciding to run the software and access their website. By making the conscious decision to view the site, you're entering into an agreement with them for services rendered versus ad space on your web browser page. If you are not satisfied with this, i'm sure there are other banks with different policies.
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
On first reading this submission, I assumed myciti was a content provider of some kind. And I figured, if I wanted their content that badly, I'd just pay for it. More likely, it wasn't something I needed more than I need my peace -- and buzzy banner ads manage to disrupt my peace far far more often than they encourage me to buy anything. After all, I've already given up reading washingtonpost.com at home, as I'm not even able to register with them using Mozilla.
But myciti.com isn't a content provider; it's a banking/investment service. Presumably, if I take the trouble to browse there, it's because I think I might want to see what services they offer.
But apprently they assume their services are so worthless that before I'd purchase those services, I'd have to be overcome by their advertising. Or they think their marketting position is so precarious, they must have a captive audience.
Or perhaps they're confident in their services but want to subject me to ads for their third-party affiliates? Is citibank worried they can't profit without selling my eyes to third parties?
Whatever the case, it appears that citibank isn't doing so well. Either their products don't sell without extensive, in-your-face advertising, or the company isn't profitable without selling marketting in addition to investment products.
Either way, it seems a good indication -- one might say an invitation even -- to stay away from citibank.
And that's what I'll be doing, thanks.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Heh. Squid with AdZap works fine. No ads and no problems. Just another case of free software doing a better job than commercial stuff.
I felt I HAD to start using ad blocking software when sites started doing REALLY invasive ads (X10, yahoo, flash ads, etc.) That and the tracking being done by companies like doubleclick. With limited bandwidth, it was a no-brainer decision. Some sites are so bad that they have 200K or so of ads for ~2K of content. Pathetic. Then there are the annoying sites that spread 20K of text over 5 pages just so they can get more ad impressions at our expense. Unfortunately, the responsible sites that I like suffer due to the actions of irresponsible sites.
In the 200K ads vs 2K content example, you kinda wonder what their operating costs would be if they DIDN'T serve ads. Maybe they wouldn't need so many ads to make ends meet if their bandwidth bill was 1/100th the size that it currently is.
Yeah there is the argument that if you want the content, you MUST take the ads too. I don't agree with that, which is why I use TIVO and bypass ads on tv, or change channels or pop in a CD when listening to radio and the ads come on. Media execs would call me a theif saying that they "own" my time between content delivery. Bullcrap. That is a red herring / false argument in a vain attempt to hold onto a failing business model. Adapt or die, I say. It's the same type of argument that commercial software vendors try to use against open source / free software.
I really can't see a lot of value in advertising to people who are determined not to be advertised to.
Are the advertisers insisting on this, or is it something that Citi are doing to increase the number of views they get for each advertiser?
Strange that in this discussion, which is about being forced to accept advertising, nobody has mentioned Slashdots policy or the thread that got bitchslapped for debating the pro's and con's of disabling the ads here...
Now, what are the odds that this post is modded offtopic?
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
browsers I use lynx (no pop-up windows), mozilla
(with pop up windows disabled) and konqueror (pop-up
windows disabled again).
ECW! ECW! ECW!
As far as I'm concerned, ALL ads are unsolicited. How many people do you know who say "jeez, I wish there were some commercials I could watch." Accept during the superbowl...because some of those are just damn funny.
If their advertising dollars are worth more than the money in their bank.... well then, they're in the wrong business!
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey