Fighting Surf Wars
By Reid Goldsborough
The metaphor comparing the business world to a battleground is often overused. But it’s not trite to say that a fierce struggle is raging between Web advertisers trying to capture your attention and Web consumers who want to surf unfettered.
The stakes are high. With the collapse of the dot-com economy based largely on the simple, unobtrusive banner ad, Web publishers are desperately trying to come up with other viable business models.
If they fail, and if Web publishers can’t bring in adequate revenue, the Internet won’t achieve its potential of almost instantly linking individuals and organizations with information they need and entertainment they want.
To entice you to visit their sites and buy their products, Web advertisers are resorting to ever more intrusive and interruptive technologies. These include:
- Pop-up ads — appear in a new browser window when you arrive at a Web page and block part of that page or all of that page
- Pop-under ads — load in the background under the current page and appear when you close that page
- Spawning — multiple browser windows that open, one after another, when you enter or exit a site
- Mouse trapping — disable your ability to click back to a previous page or use your mouse to exit your browser
- Pop-up spam — ads that pop up on your screen if you’re connected to the Internet regardless of whether you have your Web browser running
Web advertisers are using these techniques in ever-greater numbers. Almost one out of three of the largest Web sites in the United States now use pop-up and pop-under ads, according to a survey by Cyveillance, an Internet services consulting firm. About 5 percent use mouse trapping. And 1.4 percent go so far as changing your home page or favorites list.
Many of these techniques were developed by programmers of adult Web sites, having no shame. Some mainstream Web sites, having no shame, are now doing the same.
Web surfers are fighting back. Some are using ad-blocking software, sometimes call “ad killers.” These programs are widely available as inexpensive “shareware” or “freeware,” typically from individual entrepreneurs. Popular choices include AddSubtract and Guard-IE Popup Killer and Privacy Suite, available from download sites such as CNET’s Download.com, at
One program, Pop-Up Defender, uses a reviled form of marketing, e-mail spam, to try to persuade you to buy it in order to stop another reviled form of marketing, pop-up ads. Don’t be a sucker. EarthLink subscribers get use of a pop-up blocking tool for free.
Ad blocking software is starting to become mainstream. For some time, utility powerhouse Symantec, at
You would think advertisers would get the message. But reports indicate that some sites are upping the ante, resorting to technologies that disable all or part of their sites if they detect you’re using ad-blocking software.
Bad move, says Gary Stein, an analyst specializing in Internet marketing at Jupiter Research, a market research firm headquartered in New York City. “In a war between advertisers and consumers, consumers will win,” he says. “An angry consumer won’t be a customer.”
Recognizing that the Internet is all about freedom of choice, some enlightened Web publishers are adopting different strategies. America Online now bans third-party pop-up ads (but not its own). iVillage, at
Some Web publishers will be tempted to use “integrated advertising” to make ad messages seem like regular content or “contextual advertising” to tailor ads to individuals by tracking their surfing habits.
Making ads more “relevant” in these ways, however, is a slippery slope, raising thorny ethical and privacy issues. Blurring the lines between editorial and advertising is deceitful unless sites clearly label the sponsored content, as print publications do with advertorials. And using “spyware” that tracks what you do online risks creating a huge consumer backlash. A better approach here is to ask surfers to voluntarily answer questions.
What advertisers need to do in general, says Stein, is what they have always done best: Be creative. Instead of hijacking consumers’ surfing time, create interesting ads with fun or substantive content that people want to see.
Reid Goldsborough is a syndicated columnist and author of the book Straight Talk About the Information Superhighway. He can be reached at [email protected] or
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
