I read the Huffington Post online. I like its somewhat left-of-center viewpoint. I don’t like its advertising policies. They represent the worst of the Internet!
The latest ploy from Huffington is pictured at the top of this post. It’s an ad that sits squarely on top of the the content you’re trying to read. In and of itself that would be pretty bad, but there’s more.
Though the ad has a close button with a red “X” clicking it does no good until the ad has been displayed for a while. I haven’t looked at the underlying code yet, but I assume there’s a timer doing this dirty work.
So click, click, click til you’re blue in the face and steam’s coming out of your ears.
Advertising is a tough business. I understand. I work on advertiser supported television.
What I don’t understand is a business model that profits by pissing off readers.
HuffPo, make no mistake, I’m pissed. I can’t be alone.
Putting advertisements on websites is like throwing the greatest party on campus and saying it’s gotta be over by eleven…
I thought that Arianna sold off the “HuffPost” to another entity a while ago… they just use her name as part of the deal…
I often press “ctrl” + “alt” + “del” and find the ads in the list of running processes. From there, I close them with no problems
When websites do this, i immediately leave the site. It’s so annoying and intrusive.I just refuse to have something shoved at me. And until they can play nice, I just go away and look elsewhere for what I need.Hopefully if enough people abruptly leave the site, they might get the hint. Jerks.
I’m with Kelly, if a website does this, I leave, no reading no “purchasing” just leave and don’t come back!
You’ll notice that survey box has a “AOL” ID on it. HuffPost now supplies AOL’s news and commentary. So, I get these PopUps several times a day and yes they’re #$!&*
It’s especially bad when I’ve just moved to a new page, not even there 5 seconds, and I’m asked to take a survey. EXIT PAGE!!! Go do something else.
Sorry to change the subject but I loved Doppler on the news tonight.
If you use the FIREFOX browser, and install a little add-on called “ADBLOCK+” you won’t see ANNOYANCES like that, ever again! I haven’t seen that kind of annoying garbage in YEARS, now! Normal little banner ads are still there… I don’t block those. 🙂
I have Google Chrome browser with ADBLOCK+ installed. Yes, it does block the ADS but not the PopUp Survey like the ones Geoff noted.
Pop-up surveys are irritating, no doubt about it, but it’s a small price to pay for all the information on the internet that’s at the tip of your fingers and there for free. Everyone complains about advertising on the internet, but without it these organizations would fail to exist. The content you’re interested in reading was written by someone who gets paid. Everyone would love for everything on the internet to be advertising-free, but would you work for free to make it that way?
Good point Beth.
I agree Beth has a good point. When I see an unwanted popup, I just close it and continue whatever I was doing. It’s a small price to pay. I notice these things make the “close” button as small as possible. They really don’t want you to click that red X!
A lot of websites do it and I find it particularly annoying.
The worst offenderis the Hartford Courant when they run an ad at the bottom of the screen (like the Macy’s one last week) and the only way to get rid of it (if you don’t have Google Chrome or something like that) is to expand the screen so that you can click on the “x” box.
What makes it worse is if you go away for a few minutes and come back, it does it all over again.
I have the same issue and to make matters worse, whenever you access a commercial-laden website, the time it takes for all of the ads to download first before you actually see the requested website is truly a time-waster.