Are you getting the whole picture?
I just came across a strange web development problem. One of our clients called to say that they couldn’t see their ad being displayed on the top of our website. We have a semi-standard, 234x60 animated gif rotating zone in the header of every JamBase page. It’s been there for years.
Apparently there is software now that filters out ads based upon their URL and keywords in the filename. Literally, the whole image just goes away.
Since the URL of our ads had the word “/ads/” in the directory listing, Norton Internet Security’s “Ad Blocking” feature saw this and decided that it shouldn’t display it.
It’s really got me thinking – in an attempt to avoid interaction with a potentially harmful advertisement, people are severely limiting their web experience to the point of not really seeing the entire picture, and most of them don’t even know that it’s happening!
They do attempt to give their users instructions on how to allow ads to appear here. And apparently there is a list of about 50 other keywords that they use to filter out ads all across the web, but I couldn’t find that list anywhere to try and understand how to work around it.
The problem with their whitelisting option, is that it’s not built into the browser and doesn’t let you configure it from the web page you’re on and want to see more of – as well as in this case, the image just doesn’t appear, and there’s a big blank space. How am I supposed to know to allow something that I can’t see and am not told about?! At least IE pop-up blocker tells you that it’s blocked something and gives you the options.
What about all the web publishers out there who are getting blocked and make their livelihoods on the web? Is Norton just allowed to do this without really making it clear what’s going on? Isn’t this censorship? And what happens when people find out about this software and just program around it…? And then need to run more ads to make up for the lost revenue they had while trying to fix the problem?...ok, maybe that’s taking it a little too far.
Yahoo is touting the big 10th anniversary Netrospective this week…but honestly, I feel that the web has gotten more difficult to navigate and build around everyday. It's like a freaking minefield. And I think this is a really lame solution to a broader problem - pretty much exactly what they mean by cutting off your nose to spite your face, but I guess it's come to that in this crazy age of internet ad avoidance world…and frankly, I’m not sure I even have a better solution at this point. How sad.
Apparently there is software now that filters out ads based upon their URL and keywords in the filename. Literally, the whole image just goes away.
Since the URL of our ads had the word “/ads/” in the directory listing, Norton Internet Security’s “Ad Blocking” feature saw this and decided that it shouldn’t display it.
It’s really got me thinking – in an attempt to avoid interaction with a potentially harmful advertisement, people are severely limiting their web experience to the point of not really seeing the entire picture, and most of them don’t even know that it’s happening!
They do attempt to give their users instructions on how to allow ads to appear here. And apparently there is a list of about 50 other keywords that they use to filter out ads all across the web, but I couldn’t find that list anywhere to try and understand how to work around it.
The problem with their whitelisting option, is that it’s not built into the browser and doesn’t let you configure it from the web page you’re on and want to see more of – as well as in this case, the image just doesn’t appear, and there’s a big blank space. How am I supposed to know to allow something that I can’t see and am not told about?! At least IE pop-up blocker tells you that it’s blocked something and gives you the options.
What about all the web publishers out there who are getting blocked and make their livelihoods on the web? Is Norton just allowed to do this without really making it clear what’s going on? Isn’t this censorship? And what happens when people find out about this software and just program around it…? And then need to run more ads to make up for the lost revenue they had while trying to fix the problem?...ok, maybe that’s taking it a little too far.
Yahoo is touting the big 10th anniversary Netrospective this week…but honestly, I feel that the web has gotten more difficult to navigate and build around everyday. It's like a freaking minefield. And I think this is a really lame solution to a broader problem - pretty much exactly what they mean by cutting off your nose to spite your face, but I guess it's come to that in this crazy age of internet ad avoidance world…and frankly, I’m not sure I even have a better solution at this point. How sad.
posted by Andy at
3:07 PM
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