Posted on 06/23/2005 12:34:42 PM PDT by Uncle Fud
The end of free Internet content will come when Web browsers start blocking online advertisements by default, a DoubleClick executive has warned.
Bennie Smith, the online advertising network's privacy chief, told ZDNet Australia the popularity of tools like Adblock -- an extension to the Mozilla Firefox browser -- which makes blocking online ads simple was tied to "a negative vibe against advertising in general".
However, only the online arena is able to easily produce and widely distribute such tools, he added.
He said if a similar tool could be produced for newspapers, it would not be accepted by consumers.
"You'd go to your local corner shop and buy the daily paper, and you'd have these large holes where the ads were.
"You'd somehow feel like your 25 cents had not gotten full value," he said.
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.
If any browser manufacturer considered implementing an ad-blocking feature as a default option, Smith said they should consider their own position as a marketer [of their own products] and a publisher of content.
"They would be harming their own customer relationships to create a short-term, short-sighted, limited-effectiveness tool," he said. "One that they would probably end up having to withdraw from the market."
If enough people started blocking ads, Smith warned that publishers would start charging for content.
"In an offline world, what would happen in that case is that the 25c newspaper would cost $5," he said.
Like an Editorial Page?
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.
...LOL...
Bet his ancestors were buggy whip makers...
I like the monkey analogy...
"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?
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.
How many people think blocking unwanted pop-ups is a violation of freedom of speech? Show of hands?....Anyone?....Anyone at all?....
It's always nice to hear from an impartial analyst who's clearly looking out for our best interests.
To heck with Doubleclick.
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.
It's perfectly reasonable to advertise on the net without any of the above.
You mean your paper doesn't have a screaming monkey?
The only think comparable in print is those cards that fall out of the magazine when you flip through the pages.
I use Firefox and have buttons on my toolbar by which I can instantly switch graphics on/off and Flash on/off
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.
Only in articles about Howard Dean.
Oh yeah, it was back when I was housebreaking my bull terrier, that would have been early 2000.
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.
We have our ways.
"screaming monkey" is right.
My pop-up blocker successfully blocks most of the pop-ups.
But just the other day, the sneaky SOBs launched my Windows media player and made me listen to an audio commercial.
I sure hope THAT doesn't catch on too fast.
Exactly. You can ignore newspaper ads. Not some online ones.
I have no problem with an ad on a page I'm viewing. However, the pop up ad is extremely annoying, and in many instances extremely difficult to get rid of.
Pop up ads need killin.
Nope - but I'm looking to buy a car with that "trunk monkey" option. That looks pretty cool.
But I like being told I've been especially chosen for a special offer every time I visit the same page.
wow...never had that happen before
In an ironic twist, pop-up ads ARE beginning to show up in my newspaper.
My paper has started selling ads on little stickers that are plastered over the front page headline, and must be peeled off before you can read the lead article.
Grr!
Audio ads, video ads that load on the page, pop-ups, and those big ads that show on one entire website page and you have to click "next" to go to what you want to see annoy me.
A simple banner ad is fine.
My local paper is written/edited by screaming monkeys.
"You'd go to your local corner shop and buy the daily paper, and you'd have these large holes where the ads were.
"You'd somehow feel like your 25 cents had not gotten full value," he said.
He actually said that with a straight face?
Adblock can also eliminate legitimate content on a web site.
We shouldn't expect the Internet to be advertising free. I don't like pop-overs and float-overs and the like, but I don't have any objection to advertising on the pages I am reading.
I wouldn't be surprised to see sites come up with a way to block users that block conventional on-page advertising.
Yes, but you can fight back by just dropping them in the mail...blank.
What a brainless doofus!
Given a choice, sometimes I would want ads, sometimes I wouldn't.
But it would be my choice!
D'OH!
On my web sites I place Google ads, which are pretty tasteful, text-only... they don't really impede people's viewing experience on the web site at all.
I'm sure there would be people who want to block those too just because they're commercial, but I suppose there are all sorts of extremists in the world.
"They would be harming their own customer relationships to create a short-term, short-sighted, limited-effectiveness tool," he said. "One that they would probably end up having to withdraw from the market."
Maybe if advertisers hadn't been so short sighted in foisting all these incredibly annoying forms of advertising on us, these programs would never have to be developed in the first place.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know anybody who has actually bought something from a pop-up ad?
So, stupid people
would have to stop pretending
that they are "informed"
just because they've read
politically biased crap?
That sounds good to me!
I used to do that. It was years before I realized I didn't have to put stamps on them. :-)
Heh...they were probably just laughing at you!
>>I have no problem with an ad on a page I'm viewing.
Same with me. Actually I have bought some things because an ad got my interest and I could go see the product immediately. Sometimes I see ads on search results and I'll go there too, since it is specifically designed around what I am searching for.
Popups stink, so I don't allow them (w/ Firefox). Other ads I don't mind at all.
That X-10 camera was wildly successful.
That analogy is hilarious.
Or a newspaper that took all your books, TVs, radios, magazines and other newpapers and put them all in a locked room and then hid the key, forcing you to read it only. Or a newspaper that went through all of your personal information and sent it back to the publisher without your knowledge.
I agree. They should be be-headed. I feel like crushing with my hands the spyware people.
As much as I hate my local commie paper, the ads in it are not a threat to screw up electronics that I have invested thousands of dollars in.
The question was, "does anyone know anybody..."; not "know of anyone..."
Knowing what DUers do with their allowances doesn't count.LOL
Or worse yet the ones that don't and have to be pulled out of the way manually.
These guys think they're soooooo important. There's plenty of free content out there which doesn't depend on advertising to stay afloat. People have been telling these idiots for years that they don't like pop-ups, pop-unders, or other such garbage on their desktops.
They ignore their consumers at their own peril.
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