Forum Moderators: phranque
Now insert a popup blocker. A popup blocker intentionally enables the visitor to dodge the fare for the ride. Even worse, if the blocker itself isn't free, the makers basically steal the webmasters' hard-earned money and stuff it into their own pockets.
The weird thing is that this organized theft seems to go totally unnoticed by the internet community. Many users think that a website using pop ads is almost committing a criminal act, and that programs like Popup Cop are there to protect them. Fact is, though, that the true story is very different, and Popup Thief would be a much more accurate title for such a software.
Has anyone yet heard of attempts to sue the makers of pop ad blockers? Not that I would do it myself, but I have to admit that I am getting increasingly annoyed by the totally absurd misrepresentation of culprits and victims in this segment of the Net. And hey, I have seen lawsuits filed for far lesser offenses.
Nothing annoys me more than pop-ups.
If you want advertising on a site then put it on the page I'm looking at. Don't force it at me as I try to leave or as I'm in the middle of reading your copy. It's just rude!
Why don't you block people with pop-up blockers?
You send content to me via my user agent. My user agent, checks my preferences, and displays the content or not according to my wishes.
How is that legally actionable?
Next thing, some spammer will be wanting to sue the makers of email filters :)
Besides, how would you determine damages? If someone chooses to use a pop-up blocker, they are probably not the type to click on the ads in the pop-up anyway, so you are not losing any revenue.
even if that product makes them mandatory, you don't have to buy or use that product. By buying it, you, the user, consented
If you sell advertising on your site and some spyware places ads that appear to be a part of your website, why can't you sue them for a portion of that revenue?
The other advertisers, after all, are paying in some form for their ads to be on your site.
Has anyone yet heard of attempts to sue the makers of pop ad blockers?
No - you would have to sue Microsoft and Google for a start...
We aren't likely to ever get rid of the software, except of course to get a more effective version :)
More productive to sue whoever advised you to use them.
And hey, I have seen lawsuits filed for far lesser offenses.
1) It's not an offense, therefore, you are mistaken.
2) If anyone could be sued, I would say it would be owners of sites that deliberately circumvent popup-blockers. The owners are, after all, requiring people to waste their time closing the popups whilst being aware that they are unwanted.
Kaled.
Commercially successful websites typically come in two flavors - those which charge visitors directly, and those which are free to the visitors and charge the advertisers instead. ... the visitor either pays in hard dollars, or by viewing banners and clicking on ads - popup ads in some cases.
This is the most interesting view on this topic I have ever read.
So I am obliged to pay in some way for the benefit of viewing your website and its products and services, is that correct?
If this is truly your (or the website owner's) point of view, then the site owner should take the following programming steps: display ONLY advertising on the "free pages," and have all of the "paid pages" behind a login.
I would be curious to know what effect this would have on visits to the site and overall sales.
Whenever I see a pop up I back click on the assumption of a garbage site - sorry
Does that mean you'd like to sue me for stiffling your business?
Go for it. :)
CNN still uses them...
[edited by: bobothecat at 7:19 pm (utc) on Mar. 4, 2005]
However, if webmasters would just acccept the fact that pop up and pop under ads are a failed business model (as has already been mentioned), and realize that a vast majority of the surfing public despise pop ups ... the world would be a better place!
There is no reason you cannot sell real ads on separate pages which the reader then "chooses" to look at ... much like with magazine advertising.
If you have a page of good content on a subject which directly relates to the advertisers listed on the page, why can't you just deliver the reader a decent ad page with its own url instead of a pop up?
Stop force feeding these ads to the consumer and go for targeted traffic instead! Heck, you could even quarter the page and put all four ads on the one page if you like.
norton changed the default to OFF on their 2005 suite
so the user had the option to switch it on..
i havent seen it (as i loathe norton) but i heard it tries to persuade you to turn it on with some scary hard sell
info on this would be appreciated
Injured :-)
Walkman, what you basically said was "It's my right to use a popup blocker!" I'm seriously amazed that popups seem to be such an emotional topic, even on a webmaster site. That's not what my post was about at all. In a nutshell, I was wondering if companies have the right to SELL you blocking software. That's a huge difference. Certainly you personally can do as you see fit - nobody has ever contested that, at least not in this thread.
I like ogletree's comparison to TiVo, because I agree it's basically the same thing. Maybe we can just switch the discussion over to TiVo, that would move us away from the general "popups are evil" credo (which they may or may not be ;). I have to admit I don't have personal experience with TiVo, but for simplicity lets just see it as "a system that enables users to see free TV without seeing the ads". So let's say you have a free TV station that is funded by advertising, and now comes TiVo and removes the ads for a fee. The individual has the right NOT to watch advertising - for sure! But one could argue that TiVo is taking free, adsupported content from the TV station, turning it into adless content and reselling that content to the consumer. Does it have the right to cash in on that content? Maybe - but I wouldn't assume it's as clear as some people in this thread have stated.
Victor, are you aware that the CAN-spam act actually made it more likely that a spammer could sue a server administator for filtering out their "ad" messages? Back in the days when the act was fresh, this has been discussed at length in the various forums (and it should be easily findable via Google). Let me correct my statement that people have been sued for lesser "offenses" (where I forgot the ""). I meant to say that people have been sued for weirder issues. And yes, I hate spam - but that's just another reason why I find the legal aspects fascinating and worthwhile exploring.
[edited by: yosmc at 8:14 pm (utc) on Mar. 4, 2005]
I just discovered something troubling about our site from my father. Unfortunately, he's not computer literate enough to allow me to find out much about how his computer is set up. But essentially, something about his PC (whether it's his browser or something else) allows him to not see any of our ads. What's more, it appears that the html is shuffled around so that the page is displayed as though there never was any advertising there. A 120x120 ad in a column disappears, and the text below it moves up to fill the space where it used to sit.
Does anyone know what this is and how I might go about disabling it? I can't run the site if my advertisers think that nobody is viewing their ads.
This would be an opinion, not a fact.
"Has anyone yet heard of attempts to sue the makers of pop ad blockers?"
No, because what they're doing(ad blockers) is not illegal. ( at least not in the U.S. )
"And hey, I have seen lawsuits filed for far lesser offenses."
You can just about file a suit for anything... now whether it actually makes into court (without being thrown out as being frivilous), and you have enough money to compete with 'big-corporate-dollar' legal defenses is another story.
[edited by: bobothecat at 9:06 pm (utc) on Mar. 4, 2005]
Popups are a failed business model.
Are you sure? Lots of sites still use them. They wouldn't use them if they weren't converting.
they have the same right you have to put pop-ads. Does Adware have the right to sell software to remove cookies or GAIN?
