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1998-01-23 - Re: Why no “Banner Ad Eaters”?

Header Data

From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
To: Wei Dai <bradt@ehq.com>
Message Hash: ccf2089cbc6030b95155fbd5738b9537841a0966f0a2dafd42ed40d7c1edf561
Message ID: <3.0.5.32.19980122235319.0088ca40@popd.ix.netcom.com>
Reply To: <34C7D3EF.632F@ehq.com>
UTC Datetime: 1998-01-23 07:59:39 UTC
Raw Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 15:59:39 +0800

Raw message

From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 15:59:39 +0800
To: Wei Dai <bradt@ehq.com>
Subject: Re: Why no "Banner Ad Eaters"?
In-Reply-To: <34C7D3EF.632F@ehq.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19980122235319.0088ca40@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 11:16 PM 1/22/98 -0800, Wei Dai wrote:
>It seems to me that blocking ads is no different from blocking porn. All
>of the technology being developed for the latter purpose (PICS for
>example) will eventually be used for the former. 

With both PICS ratings for web pages and the new TV ratings,
somehow the ratings only apply to the program and not the ads.
After all, if each TV commercial had to be separately rated,
people would rapidly develop equipment to autoblock commercials,
and that just wouldn't do.

>I think the long-term outlook for content providers is pretty bleak. How
>do you make a profit when your copyrights are not enforceable and your ads
>are easily filtered?

Unfortunately, you're probably right, though providers and advertisers
who really want their messages to get through will find ways to do it.
The current banners are nice, friendly implementations in that they're
easy to identify and block; newer ones will just be sneakier.
They'll come from the same machine as the real page, or they'll
be embedded in the background images, or the servers will insist on 
not shipping you the pages you want until you've downloaded the banner
(e.g. by putting some of the interesting material into images.)
Sure, it requires some server rewriting, but there's money in it.
Alternatively, they may go to clickthrough payment models - the
web page owner only gets paid when people click on the ad,
though perhaps at a higher rate than current "impressions".
				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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