The Dilemma of Advertising on Internet

Advertisements on the Internet are increasingly attracting attention of the public. No doubt that advertisers using innovative advertising techniques are mainly responsible for this attention.

But a news about a French ISP blocking advertisements by default through its routers has caused an uproar in the Internet world. See report here

It is acknowledged that advertisements have absorbed the cost of internet access and also provided a return on investment to the content owners. They therefore continue to serve the cause of “Internet Access for All”.

However as it happens in the live telecast of Cricket in India on TV where we end up seeing more ads than the cricket, the greed of the advertisers have started generating a negative effect of the advertising.

On the Internet, we have two kinds of such ads. One is the type of ads normally referred to as “interstitial Ads” that block the main content and remain in display for an annoying period of time (eg:check espncricinfo.com). Advertisers also ensure that the “Close” button is not easily detectable and if the user wrongly clicks on the ad for closing it, it actually opens up the ad link.

The second category of objectionable ads is the “bandwidth guzzlers”. These ads are “Video Ads” that start automatically playing out when you visit a website. Such ads consume much more bandwidth than the entire content page which the user wants to surf and also causes an embarrassment if he is browsing in a silent environment. The cost of such bandwidth is also being borne by the user.

Comparatively text ads or low byte sized picture ads appearing only outside the content portion are more tolerable.

If the advertisers remain conscious of the fact that users get annoyed by such high impact advertising and are likely to start using “Ad blockers” (eg: Ad blocker1: Adblocker2 if their patience is put to test, they will realize that it is necessary for them to completely avoid such objectionable ads.

Naavi

For latest information on Adblockers in 2020, Refer here: Best Ad Blockers of 2020

About Vijayashankar Na

Naavi is a veteran Cyber Law specialist in India and is presently working from Bangalore as an Information Assurance Consultant. Pioneered concepts such as ITA 2008 compliance, Naavi is also the founder of Cyber Law College, a virtual Cyber Law Education institution. He now has been focusing on the projects such as Secure Digital India and Cyber Insurance
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