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Prince of Pop-ups
Ric writes "From the article lead paragraph: 'If you hate pop-up ads, you might blame Brian Shuster. A long-time figure in the Internet pornography world, Shuster recently received a patent for the ad format and is now looking to make some money off the sites that use it. And that's just the beginning - Shuster has a long list of pending patents, including one for pop-up audio ads that cannot be turned off.'"
what the porn business needs are more ron jeremys. men with ethics, morals, and nicknames shared with sega mascots. i have no love for this popup chap.
"Life is great; without it, you'd be dead." -Harmony Korine
I am not saying that at all.
I certainly do not expect any or all content on the web to be free. As i am fully aware of the cost of operating a resource to provide to others - what I am saying is that my machine and bandwidth are not resources that I am supplying to marketers for ads and popups.
Its one thing to place a webserver and content on the web for people to see - and to seek and come to on a voluntary basis. Its another thing entirely to push your content to them and force them to see it - and to consume their resources (bandwidth and cpu) in order to force your content to them. Its also another level of that to do so in a manner that cannot be turned off.
Dont confuse a person/company providing content on the web - and having content forced down your pipe.
Take this example:
I pay SBC for $65 / month for DSL. I have a Yahoo mail account. SBC and Yahoo offer incentives for DSL users to sign up for DSL cobranded by them in a cheaper package. I have had my Yahoo account for almost 8 years now, and I have had DSL for 4. The SBC/Yahoo "partnership" now checks to see if I am logging into Yahoo from an SBC DSL provisioned IP - then redirects me to a full page ad before I have access to my yahoo account. Esentially hijacking my connection in order to FORCE me to watch or interact (close) an ad. I did not sign up for the Yahoo/SBC cobranded DSL - I certainly did not receive the incentive of a discount on the cost of DSL, yet - I am still subjected to push marketing - and both companies claim "too bad"
This is the type of ad force feeding that i think should be illegal or at least provide compensatory incentives for people. at a very *minimum* it should provide an OPT OUT. which currently it does not.
so, like I said - the content on the internet should not be free, but if you are going to force content on me - you damn well better make sure I want it, am compensated for it, and have a way to avoid it. permanently. period.
If I agree to get your crap push mind-waste, by EULA or otherwise fine, but if I do not then I should be free to enjoy a happy, ad free online experience.