Browser makers warned against ad-blocking

ZDNet..au ^ | 6-23-2005 | Renai LeMay, ZDNet Australia

[Uncle Fud]

From the "privacy offier of DoubleClick" (probably a candidate for one of the world's briefest job descriptions)....this is almost child's play to attack - I'll confine myself to saying that the right newspaper analogy would be a screaming monkey that popped up in the middle of page 3 and demanded that you punch him before you were allowed to proceed to page 4.

[anonymous_user]

... newspaper analogy would be a screaming monkey that popped up in the middle of page 3

Like an Editorial Page?

[USAFJeeper]

I despise DoubleClick and wish that the fleas of a thousand camels would infest the armpits of that executive. Popup and potentially destructive adware should be punishable by the death penalty.

Not that I have an opinion on that or anything.

[MD_Willington_1976]

...LOL...

Bet his ancestors were buggy whip makers...

I like the monkey analogy...

[snarks_when_bored]

"In an offline world, what would happen in that case is that the 25c newspaper would cost $5," he said.

And almost no one would read it because almost no one's going to pay $5 for a newspaper. How hard is that to figure out?

[mlc9852]

I don't mind ads on pages but the pop-ups drive me nuts! I actually read some ads but never, ever pop-ups just because they make me so mad.

[My2Cents]

How many people think blocking unwanted pop-ups is a violation of freedom of speech? Show of hands?....Anyone?....Anyone at all?....

[ThinkDifferent]

It's always nice to hear from an impartial analyst who's clearly looking out for our best interests.

[jude24]

I bet they won't be a fan of the fact that I block most ads using my firewall....

To heck with Doubleclick.

[KarlInOhio]

Next thing you know there will be TV execs that say the fast forward button on VCRs and DVRs are the tools of the devil. Wait, they've already told me I'm stealing by not sitting there and watching commercials.

I just need a way to turn Flash on and off on the fly. I already found a program which messes with the register so that Flash can be stopped, but you have to stop IE, run the program and then run IE again.

[Uncle Fud]

Exactly. I do not block ads unless they (1) contain sound or animation, (2) popup or pop under (3) excessively slow the loading of the page, or (4) try to install something on my PC.

It's perfectly reasonable to advertise on the net without any of the above.

[Petronski]

I'll confine myself to saying that the right newspaper analogy would be a screaming monkey that popped up in the middle of page 3 and demanded that you punch him before you were allowed to proceed to page 4.

You mean your paper doesn't have a screaming monkey?

[Larry Lucido]

The only think comparable in print is those cards that fall out of the magazine when you flip through the pages.

[Uncle Fud]

I use Firefox and have buttons on my toolbar by which I can instantly switch graphics on/off and Flash on/off

[Labyrinthos]

Part of the Internet's value proposition lies in the provision of large amounts of free content. "But that content is not without cost. And that cost is my eyeballs seeing an ad on a page. Or within an e-mail, or next to my search results, or however it's going to come," Smith explained.

No, the cost is a little file, applet, program, or script that the AD places on my computer without my knowledge or consent that tracks everything I do on the computer, steals my email address and then bombards me with spam, and hijacks my browser or worse.

[ghitma]

No, he jumps up on every other page.

[mlc9852]

Only in articles about Howard Dean.

[Uncle Fud]

Beats me, I literally can't remember the last time I bought a newspaper.

Oh yeah, it was back when I was housebreaking my bull terrier, that would have been early 2000.

[ghitma]

How can you tell if I am raising my hand or not?

[Larry Lucido]

The only think comparable in print is those cards that fall out of the magazine when you flip through the pages.

Perhaps worse, though, are those cards that are stapled in so that the card is on page 60 but it sticks out halfway onto page 40 also.