Slashdot Mirror
Pop-Up Ads Lead to Consumer Revolt, Ad-Blocking
securitas writes "The New York Times' Saul Hansell reports on pop-up advertising and the consumer backlash against intrusive advertising. It's worth noting that pop-ups and pop-unders are the most effective, lucrative and annoying online advertising form. The article discusses the boom in ad-blocker software, with AOL, Yahoo and Google getting into the game. Microsoft says that it will include pop-up blocking in IE when it releases WinXP SP2. According to one pop-under ad agency, 20%-25% percent of Web users have pop-up blocking enabled, double the rate of a year ago - Earthlink's numbers bear that out, with 1 million of its 5 million customers using its ad-blocking software 18 months after release. DoubleClick says that it is 'developing technology that will enable pop-up ads to evade the blocking software.' Why isn't that surprising?"
Flashy, animated image ads on websites are just about as annoying about as much as pop-ups. Fortunately the Mozilla family of web browsers allows the user to block images from specific servers, which seems to work well in targeting ad-serving servers (doubleclick.com being one of the worst) yet leaving the ornamental graphics intact.
Thanks to this, I've pretty much squashed the "Get 1,000 Smileys Free" advertisements.
Now if there were only a way to block certain Flash advertisements and still be able to watch Strong Bad answering his e-mail.
I find it strange that companies like DoubleClick and X10 believe that advertising is most effective when maximally annoying. Google's advertising is a perfect example of how targeted advertising -- matching keywords to ads, tracking the effectiveness of ads, and showing ads where they are most effective -- can be quite profitable. And they're doing it with text-only ads, no flash, graphics taking over your entire screen, or pop ups.
At best, popup ads and other annoyances seems penny-wise and pound-foolish, sacrificing long-term customer satisfaction of the many who are subject to these ads and overall brand reputation for a potential short-term boost in sales from the few customers that do click through on annoying ads. For example, because I hate their ads so much, I would never buy any product from X10.
But I actually find Google's ads useful and click on them frequently because they're so well targeted to whatever I happen to be looking for. Targeted ads work. They show information or a product that's actually useful to me without getting in my way. Why do other advertisers continue to annoy customers with useless and irrelevant popup ads?
Is it not illegal to do circumventing of technology. So would this not be a violation of the DMCA. Ok sorry bad joke, but in reality, this would really hurt double click, think about it, there are people that said "we hate pop ups so much we will disable them" and double click is saying not to us, would that not create bad PR for them, if I was looking to do ads I don't think I would use double click because it would just anger people against my product, I don't see web ads as bad, but if some one disables pop-ups, I don't think I would want to have my ad come up as a pop-up that would just put me on their "do not buy from" list. just my 2c.
Isn't it nice that they have to wait for a whole XP service pack to be qualified and released before they can get an update to IE so they can block pop-ups, something that most other current browsers provide and some of those for a while.
;-)
That is innovation for ya
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
Bye bye Doubleclick ads...
You realize that if you block pop-ups, that you're stealing Internet service. In fact, this is even worse than what TIVO users are doing by stealing television. At least in TIVO's case, it can't skip over "live" broadcasting.
You are all just a bunch of sick criminals.
--
Jamie Kellner
Chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting
Why not try and advertise something that someone *WANTS* to purchase-- Maybe *THEN* you won't have to evade a protection I put on my computer because I don't want to deal with your crap.
/Ex
Why is this so hard? Google's apparently doing a pretty good job of it-- Sure you need a lot more customers, but for the love of frank, I don't need any goddamned spy cameras, I don't have a babysitter or a cheating spouse, or for that matter a misbehaving dog.
yep, next thing you know, those companies who make huge use of pop ups and pop unders will sue MS for lost revenue :) Will it even surprise you?
and how long will it be before some one start fighting witht he claim that the otherones software violates the DMCA. it seam this argument is the way everyone fights things today.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Why don't companies just sell stuff that people really want. A good product or service should be enough in itself to get consumer interest without resorting to nasty tricksy little pop-ups. There are many other forms of advertising are more effective and less annoying.
It's worth noting that pop-ups and pop-unders are the most effective, lucrative and annoying online advertising form.
Incorrect. Search advertising such those offered by Google (AdWords), Overture and numerous other players are better in terms of click-throughs, conversion rates, or any other relevant measure of advertising effectiveness. The same goes for online yellow pages advertising.
The point of these "directional" forms of advertising is that the consumer identifies a need or an area of interest before the ad is displayed. The very reason why this advertising is less annoying - its relevance - is why it is effective.
Those smileys ads are my favorite--those stupid little creatures in their two frame animations really get a giggle out of me, especially since I can't imagine how they expect to make money off that stuff. The ones that really irk me are the 60fps flashing hot pink and yellow ones that proclaim that I'm a winner!
...but firewalls and AV software as well.
My hard drive blew up last week, and when rebuilding my system, I skipped ZoneAlarm and installed Kerio Personal Firewall instead... an incredible piece of software if I do say so myself, but it also has built in ad blocking (and configurable to add more blocking).
Not that that matters too much since I am using FireBird, but a two pronged approach is better than one.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
People seem to be unquestioningly talking about 'blocking' pop-ups as though your computer had to actively take measures to avoid these intrusions. But all it means is using a web browser that does not execute the Javascript code. There are plenty of browsers with no Javascript at all, and it is not part of any HTML standard.
Similarly, using lynx is not 'image blocking'.
There is a grey area when you try to have Javascript support enabled but limit the things a script is allowed to do. But really this is just closing security holes in the original Javascript specs (popups are a form of DoS attack).
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Golly, I'm glad Microsoft is all over this one, because God knows nobody else would ever have thought to do it.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
Doubleclick is attempting to evade the pop-up blockers? See, this is something that's always boggled my mind. People are using popup blockers because they don't want to receive popups. As such, they respond in a hostile manner to popup ads, and may more than likely be dissuaded from using any product advertised in such a fashion. The consumer, by using a blocker, is making a statement that they do not want to be advertised to in this way, that they find it intrusive, and that they will not respond to this form of advertising positively.
What makes these companies think that finding means to actively go against consumers' wishes will be an effective way to earn their business? It's like the do-not-call registry. If I opt to be put on the do-not-call list, that means I have no intention of buying anything from a telemarketer. As such, the companies are not losing any of my business because I was never going to give them my business in the first place. If anything, they're saving money by not having to waste the 15 seconds it takes to call me and find out I'm not interested.
Common sense, people...
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"-TMBG
In my opinion the strength of the computer industry lies in it's ability to solve a given problem with many different tools. There are different programming languages, different architectures... etc etc.
That's fine and dandy but it obviously works against us in cases like these where pop-up ad's are able to circumvent and/or bypass our attempts to stop them.
Imagine for a moment that there was only ONE browser to use, one language to program in, one way to view the web (excluding the fights that ensue over who currently controls those types of things). If there were only one way to do things, we'd be able to block these pop-up/under dicks without a problem. Unfortunately with an over abundance of tools available it becomes a (and forgive the analogy) game of push-down/pop-up. We stop them in one area or with one tool and they find a way around it.
Granted we do the same thing in other industries and sectors but I wonder sometimes if maybe the technology world has gone overboard with it's developing of choices.
I think choice is fundamentally a good thing, it's necessary and has it's function in the grand scheme of things... but I think it's high-time people organized and started trimming down some of those extranneous choices, not that there has to be *one* way of always doing thing or even *two* or *three*... but for christ's sake, when is it all enough?
I've always thought of keeping a pad and pencil beside my phone, and write down on it every single company which trys to telemarket to me on a Saturday morning. But do I ever do it? No. I'm too lazy. I figure this is what the pop-under advertisers count on. Divide and conquer us, hope we never talk to each other and rise up as a consumer "union," and hope to god I never get around to writing down company names on that pad.
As people always point out to me, if they actually make more money than they lose doing this, then they'll never, ever stop trying to do it. They'll always find ways to get around the technology, and, knowing, Microsoft, they'll always leave a year-long window open for those advertising mechanisms to work.
But then, I'm preaching to the choir.
I had no idea how appalling it had gotten with pop-up ads. On my desktop machine I use Proxomitron and I rarely see them but the other day I connected online with my laptop (which has no pop-up blocking software) and I was hit with a barrage of them at almost every mainstream site I went to -- except for my own.
I really feel for people with older machines who surf and don't use a blocker. My laptop is old and the thing practically bogged down with all the bloody pop-ups that kept opening up.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/19/technology/19eco m.html?ex=1389934800&en=5b1cf221151d8850&ei=5007&p artner=GOOGLE">its gonna get much worse
Beginning tomorrow, more than a dozen Web sites, including MSN, ESPN, Lycos and iVillage, will run full-motion video commercials from Pepsi, AT&T, Honda, Vonage and Warner Brothers, in a six-week test that some analysts and online executives say could herald the start of a new era of Internet advertising.
The new ad technology, from Unicast, an advertising company based in New York, invisibly loads the commercial while unwitting users read a Web page, then displays the ad across the entire browser area when users click to a new page. The resulting ad is identical to TV, whether the user has a high- or low-speed connection. The company says the technology evades pop-up blockers, but the person can skip the ad by clicking a box.
thanks, no need to remind me to add your servers to the Hostfile Project
Most people don't understand what their computers can do, right now. I regularly amaze the users I support by helping them back up data and so forth, sometimes transferring data - like magic - over the network. People are amazed when they see they can send a document to their friend ... without using e-mail! It's all relatively mundane stuff, but it's beyond the comprehension of people who use computers ... drumroll please ... EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES. Think about that. Is there any other industry where regular, daily users of a technology are nevertheless bumbling novices at it?
I think it will take Microsoft's inclusion of this in IE to really shift these numbers. Until technology is forced upon people, most won't even realize they have the option.
...is the public's misconception about pop-up ads. Due to the slick marketing of AOL and Earthlink et al, when their screen becomes full of ads, they call up their internet service provider and give them tons of grief. I see my (less than savvy) friends pay fees to companies like AdsGone (i think it's $50/year to use the software) to get rid of "popups" by automatically closing them when they open.
But the other issue, is that 99% of the time when someone is getting the shit hammered out of them by popup ads it is because they've got about 15 parasites embedded into IE that sits and serves them all day.
True "pop up ads" only occur when you enter a site, or leave a site, and shouldn't just pop up spontaneously whenever the computer is on, regardless of whether or not you are on the inet. I've seen computers so laden with these that they are completely useless- you start the machine up, and it serves so many ads in the first minute that it crashes. But once again, the customers do not understand this, they simply blame their ISP.
Finally, the latest thing that i'm seeing (i work in tech support if you haven't figured this out yet)....
people will call up yelling and screaming and bitching and moaning about all these pop up ads they're getting. So i look at their computer and i start pointing to such things as Precision Time, or WeatherBug, or all these other "adware" programs they've installed as the culprit. They understand it when i tell them, but then i get things like "but i LIKE my Desktop Calender, i don't want you to remove it." or "but i LIKE my Huntbar." or "but i LIKE the MYWAY software, i want to keep it." and stuff. They will bitch about the ads, i tell them why they are getting them, but they don't want to fix it. However, this still doesn't stop them from calling up and bitching about the ads every other week.
It's a no-win situation for all concerned. I hate blanket statements, but the fact is, most of the people on the internet don't deserve to be there and will always be miserable, no matter how much you try to help them.
do() || do_not();
The problem is this:
1) Bandwidth is expensive.
2) Content isn't free.
3) Web users refuse to pay for the vast majority of their content.
4) Web users quickly learn to ignore any form of advertising.
Until that knot is unraveled advertising will get increasingly obnoxious. Look at your spam to see how far a distance there is until rock bottom is hit.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Making software that evades my security measures is wrong.
If I purposely put in place software to protect me from viewing popup ads, and you circumvent it you may be guilty of a "hacking" crime.
I did not authorize you to pop up ads on my computer, I explicitly configured to prevent this.
By enabling your software to evade my blocking software you can't claim that you were authorized.
When I take steps to avoid something, you can't claim implied consent anymore.
"The era of the pop-up/under/other sort of spawning window is coming to a well-overdue end."
...
...
Do you mean like the SPAM era has come to an end? Oh, wait
Granted, popup blocking may get better, but this is cyclical
KARMA TAG! You're it.
When I read the article last night, I was disappointed that they have no mention of Opera or Mozilla. This is the Technology section isn't it? Shouldn't they have some awareness of the built-in Pop-Up blockers? And isn't it important to know (from my understanding) that Mozilla still downloads the ads but doesn't display them? Is that taken into account in any of the statistics?
Granted Mozilla doesn't have large userbase, but if the Technology section of one of the biggest papers in the world isn't going to report on it, then mozilla will increase user base slower because people won't know about it (since it's reported less in mainstream media) and it reduces the reputation of the paper. I know lack of reporting on this is common, but it still galls me. People continue not to realize that better solutions than MSIE. And the developers continue to develop only for MSIE. and you know the whole routine. it's just sickening...
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
Legislation sucks. Can't we just make it illegal to advertise to people who have taken steps to prevent that particular method of advertising from reaching them?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
"I don't want to see pop-ups blocked," said Matthew R. Coffin, the chief executive of LowerMyBills.com, a site that sells long distance and other services. Pop-up and pop-under ads, he said, attract more people than any other ad format. "People wouldn't click if they weren't interested."
The toolbar on each pop-up window is often disabled and the window itself just displays a large image which doesn't allow the average web surfer to easily close it. I think most people just click on it by accident or because they don't know what else to do. I am curious to know what the percentage is of people who click on the ads and actually purchase something. I suspect it is less than 1%.
This is bullshit.
http://tomgould.com/
DoubleClick says that it is 'developing technology that will enable pop-up ads to evade the blocking software.' Why isn't that surprising?"
How long did it take the government to act "against" spam? More importantly, how effective has it been? Apparently, not very.
How much longer will it be until they take notice of popups?
Certainly something is being violated if users intentionally install software to intentionally block popups, yet these companies persist in developing circumventing measures to bypass the will of the users. At least with television you can change to another channel without getting flooded with ads. With some of these websites, closing one popup results in 3 more, which subsequently results in 3 times 3, and so forth.
The result is a dramatic decline in quality and content as the ratio of usable information to advertisements online shift, and it's moves like this (developing methods around popup blocking software) which tip the scales towards the ads, and a less usable medium to transfer valid information.
Sales isn't about having a person buy something that they want... If that were the case then salesmen would not exist.
The nature of a salesman is selling something that a person didn't know they need or didn't know they wanted, and making them feel like they need/want it.
1. I decide I don't like pop-ups.
2. I install a pop-up blocker.
3. You use pop-ups to advertise your product.
4. Your pop-up manages to avoid my blocker.
5. I see your ad and I think "Oh it's *that* product! Oh well that's okay then, I don't mind at all that *that* product is being pushed at me. I will buy that product immediately!"
Do you honestly think that's how it will happen?
If a company's first form of contact with me is showing me a form of intrusive, annoying advert that I have specifically decided to avoid then I will simply *not* buy that company's product! No ifs, no buts, no exceptions to the rule. Annoy me in such a selfish, arrogant way and you lose a potential customer.
But hey, I'm the only person who thinks that way, aren't I?
I would love to see Flash Manager like Image Manager in Mozilla. I want to control which Flash servers to block.
There are legit Flash that need to be allowed to work.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
http://www.alanofdale.net/download/hosts.zip
it blocks over 62,000 different ad servers. So all I get is a blank space where an ad is suppost to be.
Enjoy!
Can Smeg!!! Will Smeg!!!
Bring it on Doubleclick! It'll be a fucking frosty day in hell when I ever buy anything from any company that advertises with you. Doubleclick will do all of that work only to have companies that make pop-up blocking software figure out a way to block the new kind of pop-up ads and shut them down again. The problem is that as long as even 0.0001% of users are stupid enough to click the pop-ups and actually buy something there will always be scum sucking, bottom feeding companies that will do what Doubleclick does. It's just like the spam problem. All of us pay because of the few rocket scientists who buy things that are advertised via pop-ups and spam. I just hope these tools don't reproduce, but we all know they will. In fact, they are the type that tend to reproduce most.
"Hey, what the hell Bobby Sue, let's have another 13 kids we can't afford to feed. Hey, Bobby Sue, lookie here, it says here in my e-lectronic mail that they've get these new fangeled pills that can enlarge my penis. Heeeee hah! I'm saving this here message and if I can't find these babies at Wal-Mart then I'll just click this here website and buy these puppies. Your 4 credit cards aren't still maxed out is they Bobby Sue?"
I don't like Pop-Up ads anymore than the next guy. Unfortunately, advertisement is a necessary evil on the Web. Without advertisers, the Internet would shrink to a mere shadow of its current self. However, my question is not why we have advertisers, but why those advertisers insist on getting in our face?
I don't know about you, but pops up that block my view only piss me off. I'd venture a guess that I'm not alone here. The ads which get my attention, and the ones most likely to elicit a positive response, are the unobtrusive ads to the right or top of the screen. I wish Internet advertisers would wise up to that.
Google's Toolbar v2 stopped the pop-up/unders for me on IE6 while Mozilla/Firebird and Konqueror have stopped them for me without add-ons.
But I have not found a solution for Flash-overs, that is, flash monstrosities that overwhelm the content of a page.
It's so incredibily annoying I'm beginning to understand why we need to repeal the ban on automatic weapons in the workplace.
Anyway, how about a "disable Flash" button? Or just a STOP THE MOVEMENT button to make a freakin' page readible without needing Dramamine. If newspaper ads twirled, flipped, burped and gyrated I'd meet the paperboy with a full metal jacket each morning until it stopped.
.
.
.
.
Medication? Yes I took it this morning, why do you ask?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
DoubleClick says that it is 'developing technology that will enable pop-up ads to evade the blocking software.'
And on a completely unrelated note, DoubleClick's stock price dropped today, an astounding 53%.
It's sad, because they just don't get it (tm).
Only problem is the javascript bugs that occur since the page is referencing some image or file from their site.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
So... DoubleClick says it's coming up with a way to evade the pop-up blocker.
I'd imagine it looks something like what sites like www.tek-tips.com are doing. Instead of a top-level window, they do some fancy CSS that slides a box in front of the viewable content on the screen. Tek-Tips is using it as part of their content, because they want to bring something to your attention, but I could easily see this method being abused by annoying ad campaigns e.g. DoubleClick.
That'll be a lot harder to block, but it'll be blocked eventually. *sigh* just like spam vs. spam blocking, it's going to be another arms race.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
A lot of Internet Banking (and other legitimate websights), for example Standard Bank. I have also had clients who insisted that they have popups on their websites. Personally I hate them but I wonder how website/web applications will be accidentally disabled by this.
What's much worse is the Annoyware/Spyware software that is infecting millions of computers. In the school district I am responsible for, dozens of computers are filled with things like SaveNow, GAIN, n-Case, and many other programs that serve little purpose other than to annoy. Some of them are even extortionate; a program spawned itself and informed the user "Would you like to remove popups?" and prompted them to BUY some rediculous software....when their software was causing them in the first place. Programs like Spybot S&D and AdAware are hard-pressed to keep up with this stuff...and some of it, like RapidBlast, for instance, are almost polymorphic in the ways their authors continually change their methods of "infection." One particular method was to spawn two processes of the same thing, and order the second process to respawn the first if it was somehow terminated. Sneaky criminals, is what they are.
#include <windows.h>
0 00}";
int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPSTR lpCmdLine,
int nCmdShow)
{
HKEY hKey = NULL;
char* szKey = "SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\ActiveX Compatibility\\{D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540
char* szValueName = "Compatibility Flags";
const DWORD dwEnable = 0x0;
const DWORD dwDisable = 0x400;
LRESULT lresult = RegCreateKeyEx(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, szKey, 0, NULL, REG_OPTION_NON_VOLATILE, KEY_ALL_ACCESS, NULL, &hKey, NULL);
if (ERROR_SUCCESS == lresult)
{
DWORD dwValue = 0;
DWORD dwType = REG_DWORD;
DWORD dwSize = sizeof(DWORD);
lresult = RegQueryValueEx(hKey, szValueName, NULL, &dwType, (LPBYTE)&dwValue, &dwSize);
if ((ERROR_SUCCESS == lresult) || (ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND == lresult))
{
if (dwValue == dwDisable)
dwValue = dwEnable;
else
dwValue = dwDisable;
RegSetValueEx(hKey, szValueName, 0, REG_DWORD, (LPBYTE)&dwValue, sizeof(DWORD));
}
RegCloseKey(hKey);
}
return 0;
}
Compile this as a standard Windows EXE. Use the group policy editor (gpedit.msc) to add this as a button to the IE toolbar. Click it once, Flash disabled. Click it again, Flash enabled.
You can probably take this and make it fancier (error reporting, toggle notification or whatever, right now it's silent), but that's basically how it works.
The seemingly endless paid listings at the top of Google are useless AND annoying,
What are you talking about? Google never shows more than TWO ads at the top of the results, and they are pure text... not even large fonts or flashy colors and are very explicitly marked as paid listings.
If that strikes you as "seemingly endless" or "annoying", you have issues.
A previous slashdot article yielded this gem that I use to block some ads. Thanks to the original poster (several months, maybe a year ago !). Set this as your default stylesheet and you are ready to go.
,d mt.com'],r eak.com'],v ertis'],n ner/'] { /* this hides the usual 468x60 Flash banner ads */i dth= "468"][height="60"] { /* this hides the not so usual but very annoying 728x90 Flash banner ads */i dth= "728"][height="90"] {
*[src*='/ad/']
*[src*='/ads/'],
*[src*='/Ads/'],
*[src*='at
*[src*='doubleclick'],
*[src*='bluest
*[src*='us.a1.yimg.com'],
*[src*='ad
img[src^='http://images.slashdot.org/ba
display: none !important;
}
embed[type="application/x-shockwave-flash"][w
display: none !important;
visibility: hidden !important;
}
embed[type="application/x-shockwave-flash"][w
display: none !important;
visibility: hidden !important;
}
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" [William Shakespeare]
"Beginning tomorrow, more than a dozen Web sites [...] will run full-motion video commercials. [...] The new ad technology, from Unicast [...] invisibly loads the commercial while unwitting users read a Web page"
My chosen ISP implements a bandwidth quota and excess charges. Will these web site operators who incorporate full-motion in to their web pages pay for my bandwidth?
The point's rather moot in my case though. They can kiss my arse as I will continue to avoid IE, and any web site that requires it. I'd like to see them hijacking my web experience considering I use Mozilla and a customised hosts file.
It is amazing to me to observe the two schools of thought these days.
School Of Thought #1: Doubleclick says that it can legally bypass ad-blocking software to show ads to "customers" who clearly don't want to see them.
School of Thought #2: It is, however illegal to bypass protections to view media (e.g. DVDs) that one purchases legally.
These are intangibles bought with money but paid for by consumers.
If you click on a link it does not display what you request immediatly. In reality they display their advertising on the main window where you clicked the link. And the link you just requested is displayed on a pop up ! The result being, if you blobk pop up you never get what you requested, only the advertising. This is really more than annoying I only saw that once and never came back on the page...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
> "These pop-up blockers, as they become too
> widely used, will definitely cut into my
> income," said William Smith, who runs 40
> Web sites from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
> "A guy has to make money," he said.
"These bank vaults, as they become too widely used, will definitely cut into my income," said Smilliam With, bank robber and safecracker. "A guy has to make money," he said.
The reason is testing issues not anything to do with third party SW per se.
One benefit is that I had to reinstall Flash. I didn't get around to doing it for a few days and I realized I could live happily without it.
Try it you might like it.
Help fight continental drift.
You're exactly right about this. I've always thought there was a difference between "advertising" and "marketing". The purpose of advertisment is to let people know that you are selling something so they know where to get it. Informative without being pushy. The purpose of marketing is to convince you that you should buy what they are hawking whether you really need it or not.
The former can be inconvienent, but I think is really a necessary evil. The latter, epitomized by spam and pop-ups, is vile.
The line between the two can be fuzzy, but there is no doubt whatsoever about low lifes who feel they have the right to invade your privacy because "A guy has to make money." Bite me. Get a real job and work for a living.
I already do this. There's two components:
- A blackhole Web server. It runs on a single IP on my LAN and returns a 404 code for any request.
- A wildcard zone file for BIND that returns an A record pointing to the blackhole Web server's address for any name in whatever domain uses the file.
When I want to block a domain, I just add an entry toYes, this can be bypassed by hard-coding IP addresses in, but if that starts becoming common I'll respond by adding firewall rules that return appropriate ICMP errors for the netblocks involved.
And the neat thing is that, while it takes a techie to set something like this up the first time, copying that setup onto a new LAN is utterly trivial.
This could easially be good for you. As other customers start using more bandwidth, your useage becomes less and less extreem. It could easially happen that you get a much larger bandwidth cap because the average user is using so much.
Earthlink are in competition with AOL for customers. AOL own Netscape and never bothered with a pop-up blocker on Netscape 7.0 even though the Mozilla had it because AOL are in the portal/Advertising business. Thus Earthlink had provided a pop-up blocker because AOL don't and Earthlink were on the prowl for new subscribers and not as interested in pop-up ad traffic.
Microsft have also not bothered because they too are in the portal business. Microsoft are thus like AOL in that they don't initially care about end-user experience but ad revenues. When the end-user experience becomes painful then they move their products on.
Opera are NOT in the pop-up ad business and thus have had a pop-up blocker as soon as they could code it. Same with Mozilla.
As to how much the NYT online is biased by ad revenue is another question but I don't recall seeing any mention of Open Source products being mentioned; just commercial ad-blockers, portal sites and other vendors.
You make your own call if its information or informercials. Me: I use Mozilla 1.5 and IE/Google - I'm happy.
Security Tab Restricted Sites Icon Sites... "doubleclick.com" enter "doubleclick.net" enter OK Internet Icon Custom Level... Disable all Jscript and ActiveX controls OK Let's see doubleclick beat that.
Calling atheism and agnosticism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.
"DoubleClick says that it is 'developing technology that will enable pop-up ads to evade the blocking software.' Why isn't that surprising?"
Actually this is more like fishing for MS vulnerabilities that allow unauthorized code execution. Exploiting such a thing for commercial purposes is trespassing and against DMCA isn't it?
It's one thing to use cookies for tracking (they are there and accessible) quite another for a corporation to "evade" and "break" security measures put in place by consumers to keep unwanted code from executing on their boxes, to execute unwanted code.
An analog would be picking the lock on someone's front door, and deactivating their alarm system to put a flyer on their coffee table.
Doubleclick will lose that court battle; )
I wonder if these advertisers have any clue how much the lose in sales. Not like most of us are going to send a "I was going to buy from you but I hate popups." message.
I was, in fact, going to do a whole home automation thing with X10 products way back before they started abusing pop-ups. Now the only way I'll do a home automation setup is if I find a different vendor.
I could forgive some vendors for using popups, but I won't cut any slack to those who use "pop-up blocker evasion" techniques. It shouldn't be a battle between me and businesses. If I'm blocking pop-ups, that means I don't want them... period.
That's right...
On the web, you can at least do something about most of these animated pop up ads. But I've seen them on TV as well! They haven't appeared here in Europe yet, but I've seen them on some episodes of Southpark and Futurama that I downloaded. In the middle of the show, a small blue backdrop appears in the lower right corner, and in front of it a man in a suit promotes the next show that will be on. It's soundless but animated and extremely annoying. You can't click him away, or even skip over it (if you have a Tivo) if you don't want to miss part of the show you're watching!
I really hope this sort of thing will not become more pervasive in television programming...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Wouldn't it be possible to implement logging so that you can see what your adblocker blocks?
Calling atheism and agnosticism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.
I mean, what we are trying to run is ad-blocking software, so we are taking it upon ourselves to re-author copyrighted information ( i.e. a web page content ) on the fly.
So, to me, they have the same right to try to force me to see the ad as I have to try to not see it. The ultimate decision is : do I even look at that web page or not.
I think this whole condrundrum is just like the RIAA's condrundrum. Yeh, you can pull lawyers into the fray and spend lots of money, but I do not think that will alter much of anything in the outcome. People will do mostly what they want, technology permitting. There will always be the cat and mouse game.
I am noting some sites fighting back against pop-up blockers by making content as well as ads as a popup. And hosting the ad on their server in the same directories as the content so you can't rely on your cached list of ad-servers to cull it out for you. Frustrating, as you really can not really identify until you have personally inspected the content if you wanted it or not.
I normally run java off because of all the annoyances ( and crashes ) I get as webmasters find sneaky javascript tricks to slip onto their pages. Although these tricks may work for some browsers, they may have quite different results on others. Especially older ones such as mine. From reading this article mentioned, a lot of people are running some sort of blockers, so it behooves the commercial business webmasters to steer clear of things on their site that mimic or use extended techniques.
The most recent example I have is I was looking for some data on washing machines. I visited www.sears.com to see the latest in Kenmores. Hmmm. blank page. I wasn't in the mood for examining source code and fishing the addresses from it, so I just visited Google. I ended up with lots of alternate sources that worked. I note that a lot of large businesses use weird stuff on their pages which trips up my system. But not all. Wal-Mart so far has had very clean pages that don't send me funny stuff that trips me up. I flat do not know why commercial webmasters slip funny proprietary stuff in that trips up peoples stuff. Its kinda like having a parking lot full of dog shit.
And while I am on this, why do commercial sites use proprietary stuff like .ra audio files or .rm video, when just about everything out there happily plays .mp3 or .mpg formats?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
For example, I recall once saying that I thought a feature of one of our ads was obnoxious and would certainly cost us sales. So, my boss said "let's test it", and we went over to the graphics department, I described the changes I wanted, an artist made them in a few minutes in Photoshop, and my boss purchased 25k impressions of the new banner. A couple hours later, we had complete stats on how this banner had done compared to other banners we'd run in the same time on the same sites, and knew by exacly how much my banner was worse than the others.
We constantly tweak our banners, measuring the results. It's very Darwinian.
What this means is that online advertising isn't like, say, TV ads, where if people skip the ads with Tivo, no one is really going to notice, because there is a lot of fuzziness between showing ads TV ads and getting more sales. If people use banner blockers, we'll notice right away, and be able to tell exactly how it is effecting our ads, and that will be reflected very quickly in what we are willing to pay to show banners, which will in turn very quickly be reflected in what the ad companies will pay websites for banner space.
There are a lot of useful sites that will simply go away if too many people start blocking ads.
Imagine if someone wrote a useful worm that installed some/any free pop-up blocking software on their machine.. getting someone to install a pop-up blocking software is grief enough as it is, but if you have an automated worm scouring the net installing it you'd limit the amount of false positives that companies like Doubleclick thrive on: those that click on pop-up ads by accident, like while trying to close it.
In a digital world there can be only one..
The one, the only, MrDigital.
So people want to block popups. That's fine. I block pop-ups. It just irks me that some of the blockers are not implemented properly. As a designer, I want to be able to detect that the popup has been block and and provide feedback to the user in the form of a message or an alternative. Popups are not appropriate in all cases and some folks don't like them at all. I'm willing to work with blockers. Some of the blockers just don't want to work with me.
Detecting blocked popups with Mozilla/Firebird this is very easy. It throws an exception that you have to catch. With the Google toolbar it isn't that bad, you get back a null pointer from your window.open call.
Hower, I can't for the life of me figure out how to deal with either Earthlink or AOL's popup blockers. When they block something you get a window handle back that looks very legit. It has all the field filled in (width, height, content, screen, etc) but the window just doesn't show up to the user.
Somebody needs to sit down and bitchslap the developers who did the AOL and the Earthlink blockers. They are making the web a mess. Tell them to look over the shoulders of the Google/Mozilla folks.
You can thank the webmasters that won't serve pages unless the server thinks the user has accepted the pop-ups. Expect more of the same. If you have a real need to use popups, add a note to your content saying so. I myself would try to find a way to do what needs to be done without them, as this practice will only become more prevalent.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
It's worth noting that pop-ups and pop-unders are the most effective, lucrative and annoying online advertising form.
Lucrative? That's because people were accidentally clicking on the ad in their haste to hit the close button.
Chip H.
So Far I have found Host File Blocking far better than Pop-up blockers... It Eliminates Cookie Tracking and many other Intrusive things these companies do... Pop-up/Unders are Just a tip of the Iceburg.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
I work for a company that makes e-learning software. Our customers' biggest headache is popup blockers, because the specifications for standardized e-learning (such as SCORM) require that learning content pop up in a new window, separate from the student's list of e-courses.
There are, at last count, 103 different software programs, browsers, toolbars, and security applications that block popups. Many users don't even realize that they've got them turned on--McAfee or the Google toolbar just "did it for them." So we get calls when users can't run the certification courses they've paid hundreds of dollars for. And the cost of supporting 103 different popup block strategies is horrendous.
Popup windows had a legitimate use, that's why they were invented. Popup spammers and scammers destroyed that usefulness, and the popup blockers are causing some serious "collateral damage."
This stinks. I don't know the solution.
This is not about them being able to put together their own PC, or write their own operating system. Adjusting browser settings is hardly comparable to building an engine. It's more like setting the clock on your car's radio, or setting the station presets. True, some of the more advanced settings could easily confuse the casual user, but what's so vague about "allow Web pages to open unrequested windows"? Even if someone weren't familiar with the "windows" terminology, there are classes at community colleges (sound familiar?) on basic computer literacy.
The point is that if a better Web browsing experience was important to them, they could spend an hour (if that's what it took) poking around in their Web browser to see if they could change it to suit them better. It's all about time and curiosity. OK, illiteracy would be a barrier, but is someone who can't read likely to be a big Web surfer?
I've been able to learn the basics about car maintenance and the internal combustion engine without too much trouble. If someone is interested in learning something that would benefit them, it's probably not beyond their reach. The problem is usually that it never occurs to them that things could be better.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.