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Sunday, October 17, 2004

Pop This....!
First the good news: Pop-up blockers are actually working. Somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of the Internet population is using them. Now the bad news: Did you ever hear that old adage about building a better mouse trap?

Seems there's a "work-around" in IE and other browsers that will let an ad house pop you up no matter what. Although the overall ad inventory of pop-ups has dropped slightly, their appearance hasn't slowed down and the companies foisting them upon us are actually charging their clients a premium --because it's so tough to do now.

And, they think that the 50 or so percent of the people not using pop-up blockers might actually want to see those ads.

If this isn't classic greed and stupidity, nothing is or ever could be. The arrogance of these folk galls me to no end. The fact that people are using pop-up blockers must, at some level, register on them as the fact that their product is unwanted. Yet, instead of respecting what the people want, they are actively attempting to circumvent the controls that we've put in place and force their products on us nonetheless.

What I'm not hearing is outrage on the part of the web community... Loud, vociferous, activist protestations of this virtual rape of our privacy. You'd think that some of you guys out there could stop your whining about AMD, Intel, Microsoft, etc., long enough to start a write-in campaign to your congressional reps explaining that the Constitution doesn't provide for life, liberty, and the pursuit of pop-ups. When Intel tried to innocuously insert a CPU ID in its chips, all heck broke loose. This is worse. This is the vast ad-wing conspiracy trampling your rights.
# Permalink Posted at 5:25 PM 9 comments Email this Link

Comments on this Item:

I don't think you realize that since corporations are people, they are eligible for free speech protection.

Here's some more info.

# posted by Paul 5:43 AM

With Pop Ups it is the same as with Spam, if people wouldn't buy that crap it wouldn't be there. You can not stop it as long stupid people buy that crap.

# posted by PeterM 6:10 AM

.... so the solution is to organize a boycott of the original advertisers. They may have the 'right' to insert pop ups etc. but WE have the right to purchase from their competitors instead of them when they ignore us.

# posted by Anonymous 7:33 AM

Pardon the Layman's perspective, if you will. I see things pretty simply:

There are two parties involved:
1. Advertizers
2. Sites that host ads

There are two things that these parties want:
1. Sales revenue
2. Click-through numbers

With the use of a hosts file (which I have experience implementing in both Windows and MacOS X 10.3), the ads never appear. Even if they could circumvent the popup protections built into Firefox or the Google toolbar in IE, with a well-maintained hosts file, the ads will never appear. They can never be clicked. Related purchases can never be made.

It's a slow campaign, but on a large scale, it could be incredibly effective. Call it a boycott of ads.

The only caveat is that I am unable to use some click-through services, like techbargins.com's links to certain sites like Best Buy and Office Depot. With an ounce of effort, I can just type the site in and find the product myself, though.

I am running a hosts file on all my computers and I set one up for every friend, relative, and family friend who will let me. I haven't heard a complaint yet.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I can admit it. I have been before. But as I see it, the only thing preventing this from making a difference is scale. So let's get to work.

# posted by Terry 11:58 AM

Yeah, Paul, and I'm just a care giver for my dog so when he bites you or takes a dump on your lawn don't expect me to do anything but pat him on the head and say, "Good boy!"

So let's say you have a sister... I have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and, for the purposes of this demonstration, my happiness is tied to following your sister everywhere she goes and seeing everything she does. So my claimed right tramples her right to privacy?

The Internet is a public domain. My computer is my personal property, as is my home. I maintain that my right to privacy concerning the things I see on my computer in my home trumps any right any corporation might tentatively have to shove an ad in my eye.

# posted by Bill 1:40 PM

i use mozilla 1.6 and i admit that i dont do near the amount of random web surfing that some here do, but i do visit many sites that i used to see popups on and i do sometimes go all over the web to do research, and i dont see popups period, i see when mozilla blocks popups at sites, but i dont see any sites circumventing mozillas popup blocker, so i dont have a reason to be frustrated. havent since mozilla introduced the feature.

if i do see popups making it through on occasions i would be mad since i remember the annoyance of losing focus of a page i want to see to a popup i dont want to see. i think many people are with me in that they stay in the comfort of regularly visited sites that dont try bypassing popups so dont notice the new problem

# posted by Anonymous 11:57 AM

The ggod news is that if these things are more expensive for the advertiser, they're less likely to be used. Still intrusive of course.

# posted by Paul 2:08 PM

"What I'm not hearing is outrage on the part of the web community..."

Ahh, that's because many of us are in a pop-free nirvana called Mozilla or Firefox. :)

# posted by Grey 6:55 PM

Don't feel so smug. The pop-up have been getting through -everything-. Give it time.

# posted by Bill 5:04 AM

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