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.
There is a reason why about 90% of all users have popup blockers.
if your father doesn't know about computers then he probably is running Norton...
with Ad blocking switched on,
NB: people who dont know about p.c's rarely seem to be running zonealarm pro
;-)
Is there a way I can have our site discover whether this utility is being used, and disable the use of our site, along with a note saying - "you wanna surf here, you gotta look at the ads", until they disable the utility?
Jeez, if I got trade magazines without the ads, they'd only be about 3 pages.
Do I have to resort to dedicated graphics for our advertisers, instead of ad rotation? I'd really prefer not to do that.
I also wonder if rotating text ads would also get zapped by this software...
Thanks again for any help.
However, in the case of websites, no recording is required to facilitate editing out of adverts.
I expect all television will go pay-per-view or flat-rate subscription (except the BBC here in the UK). I look forward to that time immensely. Without TV adverts, the world will be a much better place.
Kaled.
Somebody wants to SUE the makers of pop-up blockers?
I think we should award them medals and ribbons. - Larry
Do I have options to prevent this from happening?
Since the original topic is about blocking of true pop-ups, should I start a new thread?
Popups are a failed business model.
Fraid not, Victor. Pop-ups are very much alive and a very effective mode of advertising. Certainly a small minority of vocal computer developers moan about them, but these are the same people who want everything for nothing. You have two choices. Accept advertising or expect membership fees. Or in the case of Satellite TV, expect both! <bg>
Matt
But would all of us who are supporting pop-up blocking, also support Google AutoLink feature, as the arguments get pretty similar?
Read the thread from start and just replace "pop-up blockers" with "Google Autolink" and you will notice how we all just think that if the user selects to do something on their own with our site, then that action is perfectly valid.
Mind you, I am not against pop-up blockers, I am just afraid, what if tommorow, the Google AutoLink feature gets loved by the general user just like the pop-up blockers, what would happen to us publishers then? Might as well forget adsense too, coz then all Google has to do it use the AutoLink feature to insert ads on others pages. They wouldn't do it in the starting phase, but once the feature gets used by millions on a regular basis, what would an IPO "Do No Evil" company do?
Take it to TiVo. What if TiVo2 would go the other way, take PayTV, stick their own ads in it and offer it for free? Hm...
And open source software? You may use it for free, but you have to keep the copyright notices. Now imagine that someone comes up with a browser plugin that removes all the copyright notices so the users can't see them. Would this be perfectly legal? I'm absolutely aware that it's not the same thing - but if you think that's not ok, where would you draw the line?
but if you think that's not ok, where would you draw the line?
Exactly my thoughts, where do you draw the line? Plus a more important question is, do we even have any power to be able to draw any line or at the end of the day we will just have to gulp down whatever is forced down our throat (if it ever does come to that)?
This has to be a joke, I hope anyway. But apparently not. The number one complaint of people on the web is popups. So companies came out with products to block popups. And you're wondering if you can sue those companies?
While we're at it of course we'll have to sue every browser manufactorer who allows users to disable javascript, since popups require javascript to function. What else, oh, yes, you'd have to sue all non javascript supporting browsers too, since they'll never see your popups. AOL also blocked them by default, finally, after being one of the worst offenders out there. Something to do with losing a few million users a year for the last few years I think.
It would probably be more useful to find other ways to bring in advertizing revenue than popups, all mozilla browsers block popups by default, that's currently around 10% of the surfers on the web. I think Safari blocks them too by default, can't remember.
Obviously when you are talking about suing the makers of these products [even though you say you personally don't want to do that, which is smart, the only person who'd make money in that case would be your lawyer] you're looking for deep pockets to blame for the failure of your current methods. It would probably be more useful to change your current methods.
And it's not only popup blockers. I see no ads on any site unless I want to, firefox adblock extension with wild cards used correctly. I don't owe you a living, sorry. Try local text ads, with no tracking on them, that works fine and can't be blocked in anyway.
And keep in mind, any user can turn off their images, they can turn off their css, javascript, etc, whatever they want, they can not install flash, they can view your site in text only mode, whatever. The website owner doesn't have any right to maintain the intended look and feel of their site, that's not how the web works, my user agent makes a get request to your server, your server fulfills it, not very exciting. I can make as many or as few of those as I want, in terms of not requesting certain parts of your page. Then my user agent can handle those however it wants to. Very little room in there for a lawsuite I'd say.
And XP SP 2 blocks popups too, right? So you might as well move on now, nothing here to see.
Don't stress about things, most users aren't going to use adblocking, the firefox extension isn't that useful unless you understand what a wildcard is and how it works, which means most users won't use it correctly anyway. But don't make users run through stuff they hate, that's not a good business model no matter what, it's like giving every person who enters your store a 2 question test before you let them in, that's not a very smart move.
No it doesn't. Either you charge your visitors money for the ride or you don't. If you don't it is not the visitors' problem what your business model is.
> the visitor either pays in hard dollars, or by viewing banners and clicking on ads
No, either the visitor pays or someone else pays and the visitor gets a free ride. If the ride is payed by advertisers what is it that you sell those advertisers? You sell them ad space on your website because that is all you can sell them. You do not sell them certainty that your visitors will see their ads because you can't do that.
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.
I'm surprised that you would claim your original post was made with any measure of detatchment when you said the following things...
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
The bolding is mine.
Forgive me here, but this is inflammatory language, and inflammatory language doesn't crop up when you are detached from the subject. By calling it theft and stealing, you imply that you feel blocking pop-ups is both fiscally detrimental AND morally wrong.
I'm not accusing here; I'm just analyzing your language.
cEM
A popup blocker is a self defence against someone opening a page in my browser without me having asked for it.
AFAIK Google Autolink is not a piece of self defence but a tool to change the content of an article without asking the author. Correct me if I'm wrong.
To me:
A web browser is like a radio.
A web site is like a radio station.
A web page is like my favotite song.
The closest thing to a radio commercial is a banner.
But, a pop-up is like someone forcing another
radio in my face that has a commercial playing
on it while I'm trying to listen to my favorite song.
Why don't you webmasters do what radio stations do...
Every few songs is usually followed by a commercial.
I'm sure you can use cookies to display an advertisement every few web pages.
I think it would work well... people are used to commercials; they are time-honored and everybody knows that they're here to stay. If you advertise in this way you would have such a strong legal precident from the radio model that you would probably never be sued. If this model works for radio, I don't understand why it wouldn't work for the internet.
I can't reach any real conclusion on this. What it boils down to for me is, how much of a right to someone's content do I have, unless I'm willing to pay the price (in ads or otherwise) that the siteowner deems appropriate? In my opinion, adblockers are simply wrong and I won't use them. Popup blockers seem more excusable to me, but I'm not sure why . . .
That's what I thougth too until a friend and me were looking at a particularly interesting method that's gotten popular recently, a js exploit that triggers I think a css display, or something like that, turns out it was not that hard to block, we were very happy to discover this. Post a link and I'll tell you if it can be blocked, or if not appropriate to post, sticky it to me.
It's easy to get lost in the adblocking argument, I'd say the thing that gets missed is that people who install ad blockers don't like ads. They wouldn't have clicked the ad, they didn't want to see it, and if they had seen it, they would have ignored it. Flash ads are especially vile offenders, I used to not visit sites, like zdnet, that ran those. Now I don't see them.
Popups are just javascript, the whole idea that a site has a right to make your play their javascript is not particularly interesting, especially given that in the last 5 years there have been probably 20 times that MSIE users were explicitly told to turn off their JS, and in fact, the upgrade to IE 5, 5.5 at one point shipped with js disabled due to some exploit.
When I visit a site that uses doubleclick, falklag, bluestreak, advertising.com, or whatever other third party ads to try to make money I don't feel sorry that they aren't getting that eyeball count, I can't stand those types of ads. However, when I go to a site that hosts their own ads, takes care of their own business, I tend to not care, since their ads also tend to be less annoying.
Moral of the story is: forget the moral of the story. Pop up blockers came with xp sp 2, they come with safari, they come with firefox, it's reality now, so a business plan that doesn't handle reality probably isn't going to do very well.
Adblocking just isn't used by that many people. Adblock Firefox extension has been downloaded for Firefox 1.0 115,000 times, that's out of more than 25 million total downloads, that's not much. Commercial adblocking software probably has similar numbers. Translation, this isn't going to break any site, it will barely make a dent. I'd call this a non-issue, a red herring covering bad business plans etc.
However, I've never shown a person a commercial adblocking program, or Firefox adblock, who was not immediately thrilled to not have to see those annoying ads anymore. But without wildcards things like adblock have little use.
Dialup users especially tend to be extra thrilled, as am I every time I set them up to not see any more ads.
And this: I think I should be able to sue companies like Firefox that don't let me install active x controls that let me run things like coolwebsearch on the visitor's computers, since that's where I make my money from my sites. And so on. I should also be able to sue MS for making it harder for me to install those active x exploits with SP 2, since that really cuts into my website's main profit center.
Ok, I'm giving up on this thread.
Nice try, bucko. Before you slink away...
Will you look us in the eye and tell us that we must live with the sliding window with the moving balloons telling us for the third time today that we are the 1,000,000th visitor?
Will you tell us that we have to ponder whether our computer clock may be wrong, and that a pseudo-windows-window with a fake close button is the only way that is suitable for us to receive the message, or to even view a given website?
Obviously, I'm with the medals and ribbons faction here.
LOL, that's the one, took me a minute to figure out how to block that one, a tricky little bugger.
I believe it's a siteowner's right to use popups if they want.
Agreed -- provided it is legal and means the TOS of he owners ISP, etc
I'm not sure if it's the right of visitors to block popups or not.
I am sure. All any siteowner is doing is offering content for display to my user agent. My user agent and I have an absolute right to decide what content makes it to the browser window.
And we may be "blocking" siteowner's content because we don't have the cabaility to display it -- I surf 99% of the time with Flash and Javascript disabled. Should I be sued for that?
On another hand, I don't have a problem with a site that clearly states on its home page soemthing like:
This site neeeds popups/Flash/ActiveX/whatever enabled for navigation and/or siteowner profit. You are not permitted to enter unless you confirm popups are enabled. You may be sued if you lie to us
No problem at all -- there are a zillion other sites I can visit instead.
They don't have a right to sue because the viewer hasn't entered into any agreement with the site owner or the pop-up provider to view the pop-ups. The site owner has an agreement with the advertisers, but the viewer has no agreement. Unless the site is specifically a pay site, and the viewer has agreed to pay, there is every expectation that viewing the site is free for the viewer no matter if the pop-ups are viewed or not, because no agreement was made for it to be otherwise.
The parallel with Tivo is a good one. When you get a TV and get some kind of TV feed, whether it is with an antenna, cable, or dish, you do not agree to watch the commercials. You only agree to receive the broadcast. You can do anything you want during the commercials, including go in the kitchen and make a sandwich, and no one can sue you, because you never agreed that you would watch the commercials as part of receiving the feed. That's why it's okay for Tivo to skip over the commercials.
There isn't any parallel with copyright, because copyright is defined as using something that belongs to someone else without their permission, and it is defined by law. Websites usually don't require any permission for a viewer to view them (except for pay sites), and pop-ups haven't been treated in law that I know of.
Now, I think it would be different if it were one of those deals I've heard about where you use some service , like an ISP, and enter into a contract that you will allow banners to be displayed on your computer in exchange for using the service. In that case, blocking those ads would be breaking the contract, and they could probably sue you.
That's my take on it, anyway.
in many states in the US it's considered stealing to mute commercials. or not record them if you are recording a tv show.
cEM
Do tell.
I seriously doubt that this statement is true. That means that it would be technically theft when a blind user with a reader that ignores javascript visits the site, when a user with javascript disabled visits the site, when microsoft, google, firefox etc disable that function. You'd have to cite something a little better than saying the words to back up a claim like that. HRoth has this one pretty much right, except for this:
" I don't think the original poster was asking whether it was a nice thing or good business practice to have pop-ups. I think s/he was asking about whether pop-up makers or sites that display pop-ups had a right to sue the makers of pop-up blockers and/or the people who use them"
Hroth, what the original poster was doing was very much like the story of the high school boy who has a 'disease' goes to the school nurse and says, since he's unwilling to identify himself as the person who needs to know: I have this 'friend' who has this 'problem'. What do you think 'he' should do?
So even though he technically said what you suggest, that wasn't the real implication, the implication was this: 'I' have a website. 'I use popups'. 'Popups are being blocked, which is costing ME money'. Can 'I' sue? Has this been done successfully? If so, can anyone give ME a lead to where I can find that case history, so 'I' can also sue? And he got the answers he deserved.
Has anyone yet heard of attempts to sue the makers of pop ad blockers?
Probably won't hold up in court.
I have pop-up blockers installed as it's MY computer and I don't want windows popping up. It has nothing to do with a free lunch, it has to do with annoying the heck out of people that don't want more and more browsers opening on their computer. Put ads on your web site and stop popping up windows and the problem is solved.
I also have a service from the phone company to block inbound telemarketing calls, they went away too.
BTW, if you want to sue someone, sue the firewall makers like Norton that are blocking banners and ads which are actually on the web pages. This isn't just theft, it's content filtering and modifies the content of your web pages, you may have a case against them but the pop-up blockers are probably less of case.
I was wondering if companies have the right to SELL you blocking software.
YES....
and anti-spam software,
and anti-virus software,
and anti-spybot software,
and any other software that eliminates annoyances on our computers.
Overly zealous advertisers annoyed the heck out of the public trying to get rich quick and in turn created a new industry making pop-up blocker sofware that got rich instead.
Gotta love it.
CNN still uses them...
Thats why I use google news, or yahoo news
