Will Popup Ads Go Away?

from the please-please-please... dept

The Washington Post has an article predicting that popup ads will go away simply because users absolutely hate them. However, it seems that getting this through to the advertisers is going to be a very long and slow process. The article even quotes somebody from Orbitz saying, "pop-unders are extremely important to us because consumers do like them." Um. No, people do not like them. I, for one, refuse to use Orbitz because of their damn popups, and I discovered today I'm not the only one, as this reporter comments on Orbitz's popup blitz: "The worst offender, at least in my experience, is the travel site Orbitz, which has ads everywhere I don't want them to be. As a result, I now have a very negative association with Orbitz."
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  • identicon
    Mal Function, 19 Sep 2002 @ 5:28am

    RE: Will Popup Ads Go Away?

    I find this Washington Post article to be ironic because there are tons of popup ads on the Washington Post's MP3 site. After suffering through the popups which seemed to be without end, I found a Los Straitjackets MP3, liked it and bought two of their CDs that weekend. But popups remain a royal pain to me.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    john q public, 19 Sep 2002 @ 12:30pm

    No Subject Given

    Since popup ads are always a commercial of some kind, my reaction to any popup ad is the same--close it. One cannot forcast the future. We only extrapilate the future based upon past experiences: popup ads are advertisements. Therfore, when I encounter a popup ad, I immediately close it. I do not read it. When the advertisers realize that they are abusing their potential customers, then they will stop with this kind of advertising.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    lazyToRegister, 19 Sep 2002 @ 1:06pm

    What about flash ads?

    I have a pop-up stopper and it works well, though it is not an excuse that I am "okay" with pop-ups. But, the flash ads are killer; they capture your screen and you can do nothing about it (at least I do not know, what to do). I tried to disable the activex from IE but everytime IE would "threaten" me that the page will not render correctly because of this and I have to click on "OK"!, saying that "screw you". Well, I got tired of that and re-enabled that.
    The advertisers are really really stupid and I hope they know that!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Keith, 20 Sep 2002 @ 6:20am

    Orbitz reply

    I sent an email to Orbitz, informing them that their pop-up ads have driven me away.

    They sent back an email that stated that they have no control over those pop-ups, and to blame the websites in question. They also recommended using a pop-up killer.

    Clueless doesn't even begin to cover it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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