Please Don't Block Wrong Planet Ads

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Ads unto themselves are fine - the site has to be paid for somehow. The static banner I have right now for classmates.com is fine - it's there, I'm aware of it, but it's not annoying.

However, there are certain types of ads that I cannot tolerate, some of which are seen on this site (marked with a *):

- Popups/popunders*
- Banners with lots of flashing colours* - e.g. "You are the 1,000,000th visitor!"
- Sound* - e.g. "Help me!"
- Flash animation covering up site content - I've never seen it on this site but it interferes with other sites, and is a particular issue for handicapped Internet users

I actually haven't seen most of the ads everyone is talking about, it must vary from country to country, and depending on the service provider, as to what everyone gets to see here. I find most of the ads aren't too annoying (at least when put into the context that they're funding the site), but I have to make the exception for the pop-ups that have fake "close" or "cancel" icons to suck people into clicking on them. How desperate are these people for Christ's sake?

Advertisers are a desperate bunch (Yes, even more desperate than ELLCIM himself has been for a girl, LOL!). Their goal is to surround us with the most annoying ads possible in order that we may purchase other stuff that is full of advertising. Examples:

- Bell Sympatico's home page (www.sympatico.ca). Not only are there news headlines, but they're from CTV. Who freaking cares if Bell owns CTV?! I don't want to see an advertisement for a network that I'll be watching anyways. And if I watch CTV, I'll get exposed to even more advertising.

- Television stations have been known to produce ads promoting other ads. Television station WPXN in New York City has been known to air ads promoting infomercials. So not only are there ads, but there are ads for ads. Next thing you know, you'll have ads that promote ads that promote other ads that promote other ads.

- I have Rogers Cable, and while I already have them for one service, they're constantly advertising other services of theirs through the cable service - including radio stations they own that are hundreds of kilometres away. If I did listen to those radio stations there would be more advertising.

I hate advertising. There, I've said it.

for the survival of the website i propose every click the google links once every week (or more)

that's known as click fraud.

Gosh, I didn't know that.

What do you mean?

I think I've just seen the one you mean. Underpants and feather boa? Yup...makes me wanna sign up for a contract right now.

Actually, not quite. Click fraud is where an automated script is used to "click" on links. Hence having the capability of carrying out hundreds of clicks without intervention from the user. This is quite different from physically clicking on the links as Deepy is suggesting.

Telling everyone to click google links every week is perfectly valid and I am sure advertisers will want this to happen, as this would still get these users to see the ads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_fraud

yeh, I agree. This site isn't too bad at all, it's fairly fast and decently organised. If keeping it that way (the fast part really) can be helped with occasionally looking at a few ads, I don't really mind. It certainly won't be fraud, because getting someone to see the ads are what they want. Even if I never buy a thing, it's done the job of the ad and raised the profile of the product that they're advertising. That's all they want really.

I don't mind ads, per se. I am amazed, however, at how many ads here move and flash and blink and things that drive me crazy. Moreso than any other place I visit. If it weren't that I find WP extremely valuable, that would drive me away from the site.

PLEASE Alex, consider changing to ads that are un-moving, unblinking, no sound. Please.

I am exasperated for the massive, universal presence everywhere in the web of these treacherous ads about IQ. IQ say nothing about the intelligence of a person; at most they may measure the logical capability. Intelligence is a very complex thing and I don't think there will never be e test for measuring it. Oh the spider, the spider which is not an insect!

Spiders are arachnids of the phylum arthropoda.

Yes I wish more people understood that adblocking is technically unethical.

As of other mentions, I would like to note that you can block the ad cookies without blocking the ads. Some people do this because of not liking the idea that they are being tracked, but I usually due so because the ad sites completely misread the web page contents of what I read, and if the algorithsms don't work, you might as well turn them off by blocking the cookie. (The ad sites all have policies that say you can do this, or place a single cookie on your browser by an item on their page, that will also "opt-out" of the tracking function.)

I do have to note that the ad from mate1 intimate dating is rather offensive for this type of site and you may want to ask FastClick to remove it from your rotation.

I also would like to note that the most clicks have been recieved from me by google ads on many sites, and those ads tend to pay well and take up little space.

delete

I'm very paranoid about blocking scripts on my computer. I've left sites simply because they wouldn't work without scripts, and obviously I'm not going to enable anything I don't have to. Unfortunately, ads tend to get caught in this net.

I would be more comfortable if I knew where the ads were coming from, and could trust that the ad-servers were secure, but as it stands I really don't trust any cross-site content. I will go ahead and enable google-syndication though, as google ads don't appear to pose any security risk.