The world wide web faces a life and death challenge: pop-up ad blockers

Citation

Pitta, D.A. (2008), "The world wide web faces a life and death challenge: pop-up ad blockers", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 25 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2008.07725gag.001

The world wide web faces a life and death challenge: pop-up ad blockers

Article Type: Internet currency From: Journal of Consumer Marketing, Volume 25, Issue 7

Edited by Dennis A. Pitta, University of Baltimore

Today surfing the internet is easy. What makes it worthwhile is the variety of content available to users at no cost. That content is not worthless; it has value and also costs something to acquire, place, and store on the web. The point is that the Internet uses the same model that free television assumes in many countries. In those areas, advertisers pay for commercials that subsidize the television content. Viewers who watch the content are exposed to advertising placed in one to three minute pods within the programs.

Over time, viewers have learned to watch the content without watching the sometimes annoying commercials. The earliest attempts sparked a marketing research revelation. In the 1950’s workers at the Cleveland, Ohio municipal water company noticed regular spikes in water use on Sundays. After some investigation, they learned that the spikes coincided with advertising messages played during the televised Cleveland Browns football games. The conclusion was that viewers used the bathroom during commercial messages in order not to miss the game. The incident was a feature in marketing research texts and illustrated something about consumer behavior. Advertisers learned the lesson that their television ads should be more entertaining than the programs that surrounded them. In any case, viewers have tools they can use to avoid the advertising content no matter how entertaining it might be.

In the days of video cassette recorders, VCR’s, users could record a televised program. When they watched it they could use the fast forward function to “ZIP” past commercials as they appeared and thus avoid them. Newer technology like TiVo allows users to avoid commercials automatically. Arguably, free television faces other threats but avoiding advertising means less money to develop quality content. One symptom of viewers avoiding commercials is the rise of “reality” television programming using real people, and “opinion” journalism. Both are cheap to produce. Despite the initially riveting presentation of high speed police car chases, some reality shows sink to the level of watching, not playing, a video game. The result of viewers avoiding advertising and lowering the advertising revenue that networks gain is an erosion in the quality of programming.

Until recently, users of the internet lacked the host of ad avoiding techniques that television viewers enjoy. News stories from major news outlets embed advertising messages within the stories. In addition, online free games from providers like Yahoo.com feature distracting sidebar video advertising within the peripheral vision of the player. It seemed like no one could escape online advertising. One man changed all that.

A self-described “blue-collar guy” from upstate New York, is on a quest to stop internet advertising. He is known by his online moniker, Rick752 and he hates annoying advertising. Rick devotes most evenings assembling a list of internet ad sites and related data. Armed with that information, called EasyList, Web surfers can filter and avoid nearly all advertising that would otherwise appear on their screens.

The results of that effort have thrilled users but raised fears from advertisers. If ad blocking continues to grow in popularity, the fear is that it could threaten the financial underpinnings of much of the web, where publishers are dependent on advertising to pay their costs. There is a need for a measure of fairness. Otherwise, if programmers fail to make profits, they may force viewers to pay to view content. That is the heart of the doomsday scenario: the death of free internet.

The movement started when the author became frustrated with getting computer infecting material from ads – malware and spyware. His reaction was impressive. EasyList and the Adblock Plus software it works with are both free. They are both labors of love. The combination may be the most popular and most effective of all the ad blocking systems on the web. Using the data in Rick’s EasyList, Adblock Plus screens out pop-ups, and other internet ad forms, including in-page display and video.

The programs have numerous fans that see them as wonderful tools for uncluttering web pages filled with distracting ads. However, the reception is not entirely positive. Web site owners argue that the blockers will kill free content on the internet. They cut the number of times ads “appear” and thereby reduce a publisher’s advertising revenue. That revenue loss translates into lower availability of content.

To put things into perspective, a small percentage of web surfers use ad blockers. So that dire prediction of the death of free internet will not happen soon. However, if the tools’ use becomes universal, they could eliminate most of the money that supports online services and content. Currently, the global Internet advertising industry is estimated to bring in more than $40 billion annually. While the figure is substantial, those revenues are potentially fragile.

In response, web sites have tried to foil ad blockers, mostly without success. The Washington Post (June 25, 2008) reported that the Daily Kos web site has been forced to ask people to deactivate their ad blockers because that advertising money is required to keep the site running. The plea is not a broadcast blanket appeal to all visitors. The site can detect when visitors are using ad blockers. Those visitors are then informed that they are getting all the benefits of the site but site is not getting any of the advertisement revenue associated with the visit. It then warns that the quality of the content or the web site’s existence is in jeopardy. Daily Kos is a free web site but it has appealed to visitors using ad blockers to pay for a subscription so that content can be maintained.

Some web sites are taking a more aggressive stance. Since sites can detect when visitors are using ad blockers, they attempt to block them from accessing the site. The owners state that they should be able to earn a living for their considerable effort. They personalize the problem by stating that every ad that doesn’t load represents a loss that hurts the web site and them personally.

There are dozens of ad-blocking programs, and many of them can be downloaded free. EasyList with Adblock Plus deserve mention since they represent a happy combination that has led to popularity. Both of them are available through Mozilla, a nonprofit organization that puts out the increasingly popular Firefox browser and other free software. Firefox continues to gain in popularity because it is a good product but also because it is less of a target to hackers and online criminals than internet explorer. Hackers have exposed vulnerabilities that forced Microsoft to release periodic security fixes for not only its Windows operating systems but also for internet explorer.

According to Mozilla statistics, Adblock Plus has been downloaded more than 20 million times, and there are about four million active daily users, most of them using the program with the EasyList filter. The programs work in this manner: EasyList contains a list of web addresses for advertisements and Adblock Plus then uses the list to stop ads from appearing on a user’s screen.

In answer to the charge that these ad blockers will destroy the internet, supporters assert that advertisers and publishers deserve ad blockers because they have imposed so many annoying ads on users. Supporters also state that the ad blockers will have a deterrent effect, forcing advertisers to use less annoying tactics or risk driving more people to use them. The real motivation to use them is to reduce dealing with annoying ads.

The future

While online advertising seems inevitable, the ad blockers serve as a warning that visitors will not tolerate annoyance as a cost of using the Internet. That assertion will be put to the test. Web sites have deep enough pockets to develop ways to thwart ad-blocking visitors. Some are experimenting with embedding ads within content in a manner that cannot be avoided. Others are labeling their content as advertising so that ad blockers block the content. The hope is that the tactic will force users to turn off Adblock Plus.

What is likely is a series of developments and counter developments as each side attempts to outdo the other. It remains to be seen whether enough viewers adopt ad blockers. It also remains to be seen what effect they will have on free internet.

Reader requests

Please forward all requests to review innovative internet sites to: Dr Dennis Pitta, University of Baltimore, 1420 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201-5779, USA. Alternatively, please send e-mail to: dpitta@ubalt.edu for prompt attention.