Advertisements on Web Pages

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, August 8, 2001, at 10:39 AM, Ray Dillinger wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
>
>> To all who have contributed ideas about turning off Java, blah blah, l
>> wasn't really _complaining_ about my personal situation. I was noting
>> the bizarre world of online advertising in which the right third of a
>> page is filled with ads, the top third is filled with ads, and now 
>> there
>> are pop-up windows covering the main page...and which pop-up several
>> times.
>
> Newspapers are usually over 60% advertising.  But at least in
> newspapers, the ads don't wiggle.

And newspaper pages are vastly bigger than a typical screen. The eye can 
move very quickly to the sections of interest. Magazine pages are more 
like normal screen sizes.

I don't begrudge the ad makers their "right" to buy space at some site 
for their intrusive ads. I _do_ think it's getting to the point of 
absurdity. This will cause more and more people to look into Ad busters.

What will be interesting is if the advertising industry seeks to block 
the distribution of those ad busters, perhaps based on some kind of DMCA 
claim.

(Ads could be tied-in to the content, with some light crypto or copright 
protection. A "circumvention" of this liight crypto could be a DMCA 
violation. I would not be surprised to see this already impicated in the 
DVD cases: that 5 minute period of trailors that cannot be 
fast-forwarded past...it's probably a violation of the DMCA to build 
devices which circumvent the copyright holder's plans and intents.)