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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.'"
Here's hoping lots of sites don't want to pay the license fee and stop using popups.
If this guy can start charging people for using popups then these webpages won't pay and popups will start dying off. While a patent like this is mostly a bad thing, the side effects are good!
Of course I use mozilla with popup filtering enabled, so it's not really that much of an issue to me. =)
Do you Gentoo!?
Why doesn't he just cut through all the crap and patent the very idea of being a complete and utter asshole? Then he could demand royalties from all other assholes when they display their assholitudinism. Then, if they get pissed off and come after him, he can claim that in itself was assholish and sue for *that*.
It's the perfect plan. What could go wrong?
To inundate him with junk mail, of course, and also to hit him up for money. Or just hit him. No, wait, I'm a Quaker. I keep forgetting that...
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere
Maybe this means that websites will stop using pop-ups.
Oh, and I think I devised a way to turn off the pop-up audio:
1. Press the power button on your computer's speakers.
2. When you're done with the site, press the power button again.
Gee, maybe I should patent this.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
he's in internet porn eh? Maybe someone can fix it so he can't "pop-up" anymore
Wonderful! An anti-popup web article that uses popup advertising!
This is a rhetorical question : how can one possibly patent a 'feature' built into web-browsers? Popups are only possible because some idiot decided that opening another window without the users consent (and even doing this recursively!) was "friendly" behavoir and belonged in the javascript spec. The same applies to sound. This is another consequence of our failing legal system (lets be honest : its on life support at best. Its BROKEN. While the basic tenants of judges, juries, and appeals might be good, the implementation is falling apart). If the legal system worked without application of large sums of money (and I would not call giving the victory to the one with the money 'justice') this patent would have no meaning.
So in other words...
Patents pending for porno pop-up prince?
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It's not just the money, it's who's collecting. Anyone who wants to use a pop up having to bow down before the porn master who dreamed up the sleazy idea? Classic. I hope someone makes a big fuss and that it becomes common knowledge that advertisers are paying porn masters to be able to irritate you. Guilt by association and tribute! Suffer, you dick heads!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Don't be. It's not his fault. He didn't "create" anything. GeoCities deployed the first pop-up ad in mid 1997. I know this because I did, and I'm currently looking at the source code I wrote to do it (scheduling, etc.). Keep in mind this was during a time when internet companies couldn't figure out how to make a profit... oh wait, never mind that last point. I'll still be happy to see 'em go.
I was asked a question by a co-worker yesterday, and did not have a solid answer. Since it somewhat relates to this story and google did nothing but bring back ads for popup blockers, I thought I would loose it to the /. people. Simple question -- Anybody who has used Firebird, Mozilla, Opera, etc -- has seen how much better the browsing experience is without countless popups. What is stopping Microsoft from putting out a version or patch of/to IE that has this feature? I know that the conspirecy theorists could speculate to no end on this one, but is there a simple answer?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Best solution I have found is to locate the advertising servers of the companies doing this crap, and blackhole them via your hosts file. I used to see this stuff all the time when reading the news on Yahoo!, but I have since managed to find most of their ad servers and redirect them to 127.0.0.1. Personally I keep a pretty long hosts file. If I find an ad/tracking server I simply add it to my hosts file. And ya, I run Mozilla as well.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
the dictionary says:
shyster
n. Slang
An unethical, unscrupulous practitioner, especially of law.
Seems to fit Shuster quite well.
-- This sig for rent.
audio pop-ups that can't be turned off? HA! I can't even get alsa/esd configured to have more than one sound source playing at the same time (and i always have music on). suckers...
He must be murdered immediately.
:)
This post should be modded +1 Inciteful.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
" No, the correct course of action is to place large speakers outside his house playing audio that cannot be turned off 24 hours a day until he shoots himself."
I propose the "Hampster Dance" song.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Shuster has a long list of pending patents, including one for pop-up audio ads that cannot be turned off.'
I think I'll file for a patent on "Honking a truck's horn in a residential area from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., advertising a sale of one or more goods". I think I could get some license fees for that. To up my income, I will also file for "Yelling at a carefully chosen target group of people at prominent city places until they agree to buy one or more goods".
Jeez. Indeed, leaving the oceans was a bad idea, after all.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns