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Fighting Ad Blockers With Captcha Ads
krou writes "Living in an ad-free internet thanks to ad blockers? That could be a thing of the past if software firm NuCaptcha has their way by making captchas into ads. 'Instead of the traditional squiggly word that users have to decipher, the new system shows them a video advert with a short message scrolling across it. The user has to identify and retype part of the message to proceed. Companies including Electronic Arts, Wrigley and Disney have already signed up.'"
I also hear that not using capitalization and forsaking periods is a great way to seduce people, too!
"You need the latest version of Flash to view this captcha, to sign up for our website, to register your product, to download the update, to fix the problem that we shipped it with. Please download and run this executable now."
>> and are almost universally designed to mislead
Well the laugh is on you buddy, because I just bought a six-pack of Bud Light, and any minute now a bikini-clad model is going to show up at my house to have baby oil rubbed all over her chest.
As a human being, you need to fight this impulse.
It's like drinking poison because it tastes really really good.
Advertising is murder.
You are welcome on my lawn.
And the general reaction is "what the fuck?"? I'm not really sure what I just saw, but I think it was a mixture of CGI animals edging on pornography, and a mid 50's Carmen Miranda musical.
It may have had something to do with orange juice.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Seeing as Disney is a member of the MPAA, it's probably a very bad idea to ask questions along the lines of "Would (insert insignificant change) really kill you?".
The chances are you'll get a diatribe about how yes, it would kill them - complete with an advertising campaign to tell the world, forced ads in DVDs and at the cinema, notices on DVDs sold only to non-US markets full of how copying is a "federal offence" and various attempts - some more dubious than others - to "persuade" politicians to pass legislation making it illegal to use the DVD in anything other than the prescribed manner.
When that is clearly taking too long, the next Media Storage Product (tm) will be developed - and the Old Media Storage Product will be quietly discontinued as quickly as market forces will allow. Naturally it'll be patented into the middle of the 23rd century, and a condition of licensing the patents will be that every developer, every engineer who's involved in implementing the product will be taken outside and shot when the product reaches market.
Doubtless some clever so-and-so will reverse engineer the product, but the combination of patent requirements and the legislation (which, while all the reverse-engineering was going on, finally passed! Yay!) mandating the death penalty for not only the person doing the reverse engineering but also for their friends, their family, everyone they've ever worked with, their dog and the guy they don't really know but he came around to fix the heating last week will do a reasonably efficient job of ensuring that the ability to Do What You Want with the Media You Damn Well Purchased, TYVM is limited to such a small fraction of society that they can be safely ignored.
All this because you asked Disney if it would be too much to let customers decide whether or not they want to watch trailers.
(Well, if you're going to do hyperbole, do it properly!).
If a site is too obnoxious, i will just avoid it completely.
yet here you are, reading slashdot replies...