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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Zulu-tek, Inc. (ZULU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PartyTime who wrote (13468)	9/3/1998 4:00:00 PM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 18444

More on the ad blocking debate: ___________________________________________________________ The Internet Advertising Discussion List ____________________________________________________________ From: "Robert J. Woodhead (AnimEigo)" <trebor@animeigo.com> Subject: Re: Ad blocking software To my mind, ad-kill software is a non-issue for web marketers, because the people who use ad-kill packages wouldn't click on the ads anyway. So given my druthers, I'd prefer it if their browser didn't load the ad and generate an impression that costs me money! As someone who wrote one of the first anti-virus packages (Virex), I do not share your enthusiasm for countermeasures. What happens in these situations is called an "arms race". Group A writes an ad-killing package. Group B evades the package by varying how ads are delivered. Group A responds by modifying the package to detect the new style of ads. Group B .. well, you get the idea. There is a theorem in Computer Science called the Halting Problem that explains why it is impossible to build either a perfect Ad detector or an Ad that can't be detected. How good the detection and evasion is depends on the resources you want to throw at the problem, but it is always easier to detect an ad (or virus) than it is to create a stealth ad (or virus). So long as the ad-detector gets to examine and modify the incoming HTML, it has an edge, particularly in an era when Ads are Gifs or similar simple media. In a few years when video and other complex content are more commonly embedded into web pages, it will be more difficult to detect ads, but it will never be impossible. A long time ago, I used to get exercised about how many people were stealing the games I wrote. I finally realized 95% of them would never have bought it, and the other 5% did eventually buy it, and that copy-protection for most programs was a waste of time. The same, I imagine, will be true of anti-ad-killing measures. They won't be worth the effort. Do you really think that a major site is going to be able to say, with a straight face, "We're going to invest resources to ensure that people who don't want to see your ads are going to have to see them, so we can charge you for more impressions?" While I am not annoyed by most ads, I personally wouldn't mind a package that kills those #@^&#@^@$ automatic popups. Given how trivial it would be to write such a filter, it does not bode well for GeoCities stock! --Robert J. Woodhead Woodhead's Law: "The further you are from your server, the more likely it is to crash." The Webmas^H^H^Hslave's Motto: "We Live To Serve." selfpromotion.com Promote your site for FREE to 270 places! animeigo.com The home of cool anime. videoz.com Videos your video store never heard of ___________________________________________________________ What you are reading is The Internet Advertising Discussion List (I-Advertising). Since December, 1996 I-Advertising has been a moderated discussion forum on all aspects of the Internet advertising industry, serving members in 77 countries on 6 continents around the globe. All members must go through a two-step process to subscribe and this forum is never sent unsolicited. This list is powered by L-Soft's LISTSERV(R) lsoft.com and sponsored in part by: eyescream interactive, inc. eyescream.com. Owned and moderated by: Adam Boettiger <ab@eyescream.com>