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Re: Why no "Banner Ad Eaters"?
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, [email protected]
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