Katie Gendreau
Professor LeBlanc
CS 115
December 11, 2001


Like television commercials, supporters of pop-up advertising on internet websites argue that the ads merely publicize and promote a product. However, many people find these advertisements to be invasive. For example, lately, every time I have downloaded files off of a website, my default download software automatically “pops-up” a screen-size ad that contains no “close” button. Right-clicking on the ad does nothing. The only way to get rid of it is to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and close out of it, but at that point, another pop-up comes up telling me that the only way to permanently get rid of the ad is to purchase the product. As a matter of fact, as you visit this very site, a small pop-up ad will appear on the right hand corner of your screen. This is incredibly frustrating. At this point the company is not just telling me, the consumer, about their product, but forcing it on me. How can companies advertise on the internet without harassing consumers, and where is the line between advertising and harassing?

An initial example of banner advertising as harassment lies in the effectiveness of the advertising. A good deal of people spend time online doing research, or else have a particular purpose for being online. Their focus is very narrow, and ads just slow their computer down or even crash it. When watching television, however, people know and understand that commercials are part of watching a show, and cannot be blocked out or ignored. Commercials are presented humorously, and people pay attention to them because they have to. Online, however, people can get rid of the ads, and ads are not so eye-catching as they are harassing. One of the most offensive and ubiquitous pop-up ads is for a tiny home security camera, called X10. Matt Carolan, in his article entitled, “Can Online Advertising Ever Work?” (2001), says that “…many folks get more indignant and say they won’t shop at X10 because of the harassing popup ads the company employs.” (Carolan 1). Yet, there appear to be more and more advertisements online despite languishing results. Sites repeatedly employ more than one advertisement which can eventually crash a computer, as many ads utilize sounds and movement, and become more than a computer can handle. What is the company accomplishing? Absolutely nothing, according to Carolan. “The desktop Internet is not enough. Online advertising fails because it is not mobile, and not available in true moments of leisure.” (Carolan 1). Apparently, and unfortunately, advertisers do not understand or cannot accept this.

However, even though internet advertising is largely ineffective, the internet itself adds a whole new dimension to marketing and should not be completely ignored. “Some already consider the internet a nearly perfect marketplace,” writes Alan Wiseman, in his book The Internet Economy. (Wiseman, 2000) “The internet offers an availability of information which will lead to fierce price competition, dwindling product differentiation, and vanishing brand loyalty.” (Wiseman 36). This is not occurring because of internet advertising. Those who shop online find the experience to be extremely convenient, and in many cases, it saves consumers money, as products are offered at a discount if bought online. Online consumers, though, access a specific site from which they wish to make a purchase. That is their mission in going online in the first place. Pop up ads just get in their way of shopping, which in turn could make someone not want to shop online anymore if it becomes extremely bothersome. And usually, pop ups appear from sites which have to do with shopping, as the company sponsors a particular product, which could turn a consumer off to shopping from a particular site altogether. Why, then, do companies continue to employ pop up ads if they are largely ineffective? To gain exposure, even if it is negative. X10, the tiny home security camera, has the second highest viewed ad in the world. A “view” counts as the ad just popping up and a user closing out of it. Yet X10’s sales are not nearly as high as other home security devices. Many people are turned off by their advertising, but they continue to utilize their obtrusive pop ups for the sake of exposure.

Pop up advertising is generally simple to create. Advertisers use a programming language called Javascript on a web page to enable the ads to essentially “pop up” at a predetermined time, usually when the site is accessed. There may be one or multiple ads appearing on a given site. The general purpose obviously of the advertisements is to promote a product or website which may or may not be affiliated with the site it pops up from.

However, as of late, internet advertising has not been as effective as it used to be. At first, only a few companies used banner advertising and this was a novel approach to business. Consumers were curious about this new marketing medium and thus visited the sites that banner ads promoted. But then more and more companies began to utilize pop-up advertising and consumers were overwhelmed and annoyed by the pop ups. Suddenly, companies were competing to have the most online ads, and in doing so, consumers felt harassed by a barrage of advertising. As a result, pop up advertising began to fail.

Companies now are trying to explore alternatives as far as internet advertising goes. They are trying to use it as a smaller component of their total advertising. According to Heather Green and Ben Elgin, authors of an article entitled “Do E-Ads Have a Future?” (2001),

“To drum up interest in these cyber-campaigns, traditional marketers aren't even using the Net very much. Last year, when Miller Brewing Co. wanted to increase sales and brand awareness around the Super Bowl, it sponsored games and discussions on its own Super Bowl site. But rather than plastering ads on portals or sports sites, Miller relied almost entirely on TV and newspaper ads to alert people. End result? Miller dished out $ 9 million on traditional advertising to promote a $ 1 million online marketing binge. ''It's like pizza and Tabasco,'' says Rishad Tobaccowala, president of ad agency Starcom, which designed the Miller campaign. ''Pizza is offline marketing, and you spend more on that. To jazz it up, you add a little Tabasco, but a little bit goes a long way.''” (Green and Elgin 1).

Therefore, according to Green and Elgin, then, the current trend in advertising is to steer away from pop up ads and to focus more advertising on individual sites. This may lead to less harassment for the consumer to deal with, but with the internet being a relatively new advertising medium, who knows what the next trend in internet advertising may be, and how it may affect the consumer?

BannerKillers, an online group which protests the forced use of pop-up ads on free webspace users, suggests links to pop-up and money free webspace providers. Their mission is to “provide the best free website for information regarding the removal of forced advertising from both free webspace and URL redirection providers. (p.1) BannerKillers is also in the process of creating their own ad-blocking software, and provides a list of other software programs which do the same.

The very future of internet advertising may lie in the use of anti-advertising software. Such software is only beginning to become available on the public market, but the main drawbacks of utilizing the said software are its cost and the inconvenience of having to install it. Computers now are packaged with programs such as Microsoft Office and RealPlayer. Perhaps anti-advertising software included in computer packages will assist in computer sales. If this happens, then pop-up advertising may eventually fade out and die. But, according to the magazine Marketing Week’s article entitled “Wipeout for Web Ads”, “It may not be all doom and gloom for online advertising as marketers currently know it. Junkbusters' (an ad-blocking program) Catlett acknowledges that consumer inertia may ultimately limit the number of Web users willing to download and install ad-blocking software. "In a land of VCRs flashing 0:00, are most people going to install this software? I don't think so."” (p. 65).

Conversely, advertisers may develop ads that counteract the anti-ad software, rendering it useless. Marketing Week’s article comments, “online ad industry spokesmen say they aren't losing sleep just yet. "Right now, I don't think it's a threat," says Stu Ginsburg, spokesman for the US Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). To counteract slowing revenue growth and declining click-through rates, ad shops are modifying the traditional banner ad into larger, more attention-grabbing formats recently approved by the IAB (US).” (p. 65).

What if ad-blocking software becomes successful? While nobody disputes the right of Web surfers to control the content on their screen, Marketing Week says “the Web could eventually be cordoned off into pay-only sites if everyone adopts blocking software.” (p. 65). Indeed, software designed to block out pop-up advertising adds a new dimension to internet advertising, one that may directly affect the future of advertising.

How does the ad-blocking software work? Andy Walker of Onvia Business News provides insight into the process of blocking ads. “The anti-ad software blocks pop-up ads by sensing a new window and closing it as the command is given to open it.” (p. 1).

Walker examines one of the more widespread anti-pop-up software titles, PopUp Killer, a Windows 95/98 program that quietly watches for pop-ups and then closes them automatically. “It logs the pop-up activity to prevent them from occurring the next time a surfer visits the Web site. One of this program’s features is the ability to download a catalog of known pop-up windows from the program creator’s Web site so the software knows to suppress them. A user can reciprocate by uploading a list of pop-ups that Popup Killer has found during your Web surfing sessions.” (p.1)

Another popular and effective anti-advertising software is called Advertising Filter. This program is available online to download, and offers a free 15-day trial, after which the user must pay for its service. This software not only blocks out pop up ads, but adult content, too, if the user desires. Also, where Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator both track sites that a user goes to, Advertising Filter hides the user’s activity within these browsers, so that advertisers cannot get a hold of that information.

Guidescope, another ad-blocking software, promotes its product by using the following three reasons:



A problem with using ad-blocking software is that it does not run on many operating systems. For instance, Guidescope does not have a version available for Macs, only PC’s. So until the use of blocking software becomes more popular and more versions are made, the use of ad-blocking software is somewhat limited.


Works Cited


Carolan, Matt. “Can Online Advertising Ever Work?” 2001. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2799220,00.html

Wiseman, Alan. The Internet Economy. Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C. 2000.

Green, Heather. Elgin, Ben. “Do E-Ads Have a Future?” 2001. http://www.businessweek.com/index.html

Marketing Week. “Wipeout for Web Ads”. P. 65. May 31, 2001.

Walker, Andy. “Cracking Down on Pop-Ups.” 2001.
http://www.news.onvia.com/x7458.xml

Holland, Scott. “Banner Killers.” 2001. http://www.hypermax.net.au/~user/hollstar/BK/main800.html


This page created by Katie Gendreau
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