the air

As you can clearly see, my blog has absolutely no advertising of any kind. If you perceive anything as advertising, please note that my blog also generates absolutely no money of any kind for me. Honestly, I like it that way because I am strong supporter of anti-web advertising. It’s not that I feel web advertising is wrong. Rather, I feel that most ad publishers and networks use ads that are obtrusive and not fluid with the overall site. Advertising on the web should be designed in such a way that the visitor can clearly see the content and the ads do not distract from the content. It is my belief that a user should fall upon advertising and view it if they like, not that advertising tries to grab their attention.

Firefox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, Camino, and many more have tools that can prevent you from viewing any type of advertising on any website while you are surfing the web. As of now, none of this is illegal. However, an article over at News.com suggests that the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the lobbying arm for advertisers, may consider legal action in the future. Popular bloggers such as John Chow have been neutral in voicing their opinions, but they too feel that those who block their ads do hurt their revenue. When you block an ad, the site running the ad does not make any money. In addition, if the ad is blocked, you cannot click on an ad and therefore the site cannot make any money. Since the web is able to connect millions from across the globe, that inability to make revenue can quickly add up to several thousand dollars for popular sites.

If a lawsuit were to become existent, I don’t think it would be very successful because most of the anti-advertising software is released as open-source. This would allow programmers in other countries to develop variants even though it may become illegal to use in the US. In a way, anybody in the US would be able to download the software and use it. The biggest problem would lie in enforcing such a judgment against anti-advertising software users. You can easily shut down all progress within the US, but you cannot shut down an individual user. The proof of that lies with all the lawsuits RIAA has been filing against users. They have sued over 1000 people and yet, music piracy is flourishing.

I think it is far more important for a website to be educated and focused on how they want to deliver advertising. They need to focus on ensuring that content is laid out correctly and that all the advertising is not obtrusive. In addition, they need to work hard to ensure that the content is what the visitor is looking at more, not the advertising. My philosophy is that if I want to “click” on an advertisement, I will do so only when I feel like it. I don’t need an ad with flashing text and pointless graphics. I’ve noticed that some ad-servers are slow to load ads and thus prevent me from viewing the site’s content until the advertisements have been loaded. That is completely unacceptable. I visit a website for the content, not the advertising.

I realize that advertising is what keeps most of the content free for me. However, is it too much to ask the site owner/developer to ensure that ads are not obtrusive and detract from the content?

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