From: Ray Arachelian <sunder@brainlink.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 01:30:47 +0800
To: Tim May <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Advertising Creepiness
In-Reply-To: <199811072128.NAA19724@netcom13.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <36471E6E.3E8E96D4@brainlink.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Tim May wrote:
> This is the new "blind spot"...that foveal region about a third of the way
> down a Web page screen that has dancing icons, "click on me" junk, and
> corporate logos. My guess is that nearly all of us skip this junk
> completely, and I think marketing studies will someday confirm this. (There
> have been tantalizing reports in places like the "Wall Street Journal" that
> basically almost nobody sees these ads, but the full message hasn't sunk
> in.)
> 
> And the advertising creeps are getting even creepier. Intel was running a
> banner ad that looked like a typical Mac or Windows error/alert box,
> something like "Click Here to Resume Operation." Creepy. And annoying.

Yep, I ignore them completely.  A few of those search here type things did
catch my attention.  My basic hatred of these isn't that they exist, but that
they're large, annoying, and animated.  Typically, soon as I see the page fully
load I hit ESC or the Stop icon to prevent these evil horrors from popping up.

A much more evil thing that I've seen when visiting pages of tripod or other
free web site members and now warehouse.com are actual Java Japplets or
JavaScripts that pop up another window with an advertisement.  Tripod or one of
those (I tend to try and forget the ads as hard as I can) has also taken to
putting a TV like lower right corner logo that hangs around, even when you
scroll the window -- what's really nasty about these fucking things is that
they scroll a bit with the window, then jump back to the bottom.

What's next?  In your face pop up Gif89 movies with AU/WAV sound tracks that
can't be dismissed until they play completely before you get to see the content
pages?

Some places (like Wired?) are annoying since they have a window that's 1/3
content with ads on top and on the side and bottom.  I'm trying to read the
fucking article, not trying to be distracted by the flashing, flickering eye
sores to the right and left. :(

Some of the really fucked up sites actually have porno ads with porn in them,
which makes them real welcome if I ever visit a page from my work.  I wouldn't
mind the pr0n if I was at home, but such things are frowned upon at work, and
fuck, I didn't even ask to see the shit... :(

Talk about feeping creatureism.  This is about as bad as flashing HTML was in
its inception.

Sure you can disable JavaScript, but if you do some sites won't work at all.
Ditto for Japplets.

Might be nice to have some sort of filter list for browsers that says "If GIF89
and (it's linked elsewhere, or to a CGI or at the top of the page)" don't show
it.  I guess it's time to do some Mozilla source hacking...


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