Ads are taking over the net- duh

I’m sure this has been pitted before, and it’s been harped on a million times.

It’s just that it seems like ads have made a leap forward in recent memory. It’s like everybody decided to sell out at the same time- Chicago Reader w/ the Google ads, and now Atomfilms.com has it so when you click on a film to see from their front page, it slaps a commercial on your screen split-second w/ audio and all. A car commercial, from television, w/ a thing in the top right corner to press to ‘skip commercial.’ Strange, none of their videos come up that fast :mad:. And now, whenever you watch a film on their media player in the minimal window (some films don’t maximize to the bigger window), you see an ad at the bottom of the screen, often with a moving image. Fuck!

And what I really hate is the pop up ads that have fake close-out Xs in the corner which are really only part of the ad- HOW ARE THOSE LEGAL? And how are the fake warning ads legal- the ones that pretend to warn you about something wrong w/ your computer? Yeah, I’m known better than to fall for them since… I can’t even remember, but they should be illegal. I’m serious. Let’s petition.

Next time you’re reading an article or looking at an, ahem, picture on a webpage w/ ads on the sides or top or bottom, try this: open up some new pages w/ your browser (I guess w/ Internet Explorer you open up some new windows), and minimize them, then use them to cover up the ads. Do this whenever an ad is on a page.

Fucking ads. I say we start a list of all the companies Google ads links to, and never buy anything from them. This sounds idiotic- why would we buy from most of them anyways?, and some of them are amazon.com or something that we always use, and it’s just a stupid idea. So ignore it :D.

Try this instead. Labour saving and much more effective.

So… you think there should be laws requiring a certain UI for windows? Or you think there should be laws regarding the proper use of html, javascript, and css? That’s absurd.

If you don’t want your browser to display ads, either stop going to the sites that show them or get a browser that doesn’t display ads.

Not really. There are plenty of laws against deceptive practices used to get people to open direct mail (or mass mail) advertising, such as making them appear to be something they’re not by using misrepresentative elements on the envelope. (Eg, personal mail, traffic tickets, etc.)

Using fake Windows elements to deliberately trick the target is obviously deliberate deception, and so far has been dealt with on a case-by-case basis. (For example, doubleclick has been smacked by civil suits resulting from fake “You have X messages waiting for you!” Windows alerts that are (rather obviously) simply banner ads that take you to advertisers’ sites. Of course, anyone who falls for this is a moron, and anyone who falls for it and still feels inclined to give their credit card number to someone who told a transparent lie to them to get their attention is a double-dipped moron – but that’s beside the point. It’s a nuisance, and more importantly, a waste of court resources to start fresh everytime someone pulls something stupid like this.

Some amendment of advertising standards laws would be perfectly appropriate here. “Your computer is broadcasting an IP address!” is deceptive advertising. A fake IM window that appears to be from some horny teenager is deceptive advertising. A little “X” that Windows users might naturally expect to close the nuisance window but instead opens up a bigger ad is deceptive advertising. There’s no reason that people should be obliged to accept these practices as unavoidable nuisances. Yeah, it’s easier to simply employ ad blockers, but there’s no reason that we shouldn’t have the same sort of standards for internet advertisers that we do for print, radio, and television advertisers.

The ad blocker works well, BTW, thanks.

So how would someone go about getting laws passed that stop these kind of things?

Most companies who are not using deceptive practices and who rely on their advertising to continue to exist and make any kind of profit, do not deserve to be blocked by ad blockers.

It’s the cheaters who ruin it for everyone.

Hence why there should be laws enforced on the bad guys so the good guys don’t lose out.

I have no problem with legitimate, targeted, attractive advertising. It’s the cheaters and scammers that piss me off. Oh, and the flashy blinky pop-up crap that takes over my screen, I hate that too.

I agree.

And I have another example of these fucking cheaters that I just experienced- twice;

I was searching for a vague file on Limewire; I had two files I thought might be it, so I clicked them and was downloading them. It took the longest time b/c they had so few users for them. Turns out they both were for the same advertiser, http://www.efreeclub.com/ , a 30 second ad that automatically takes on the name of what you search for on Limewire and appears at the top of the list, as a WMP file.

Fuck these fucking lying, despicable piece of shit fuckers, if I could I would hack into their site and devestate it with viruses. Those fuckers. If you ever experience this, please post it here, and thousands of us will inundate their email boxes with junk emails so they have inconvenience! :smiley:

Well, okay, so no one here is actually gonna do that- but you could imagine what it’d be like, right?

… :mad: Alright, great, everybody get on the bus! We’re leaving!

I wonder, how many people really pay attention to ads on the net, specifically pop-ups? As soon as I see one I render it closed. They’re so annoying I wouldn’t click on them even if it was hawking something I was interested in. Are the proprietors of these ads really making any kind of profit?

My guess is, you wouldn’t, and even if you did get laws passed it would do little good. Unlike regulating domestic mail, the internet isn’t under the jurisdiction of one entity (i.e. USPS) which can enforce standards. If you made it illegal to create misleading internet ads, the companies that use them will just broadcast the ads from overseas or relocate their business entirely. Similar to how most spam is routed now. IIRC there are laws against spam but as far as I can tell, the problem’s gotten worse, not better. I have SpamAssassin filtering literally hundreds of messages a week on my server to deal with junk mail, and still dozens make it to my Inbox. I would say making a law will do all of diddly and squat.

Most of the misleading ads on the internet (consolidate your debt penis enlargement you are a winner take our survey and win $1000 now) are for products or services of dubious legality to begin with, so it’s not as if making the ads illegal is going to suddenly change their ways.

Well, one of my co-workers freaked out the other day when she got one of the fake warning pop-ups, so I guess some people do pay attention to them and are still unaware that the error messages aren’t real. I’ve switched to Firefox at home and love it, both in terms of Adblock and how good it is at blocking pop-ups, but I’m stuck with IE at work, so I’ve gotten very good at alt+F4 the instant I see one of those suckers.