Earthlink becomes first major ISP to block popups
 

earthlink, in all its wisdom, has decided they will block popups automatically for all earthlink subscribers...

Other ISP's may now follow suit, which will further lead to the decline of advertising revenue, which in turn will lead to more free sites (adult/nonadult) switching to a pay format or some small ones who will eventually go out of business.

check out noadsfor.us


its a proxy that blocks pop ups...

Earthlink has the worst customer service. I seriously hate them.

Thats a serious step.

wow.

I understand there are alot of popup blockers out there already
But this is just making the blocking of popup ads so much more common

Just imagine what would happen if every other big ISP follows what earthlink does, and now, voila, every surfer that surfs the internet will no longer see a popup ad. What do you think that will do to internet advertising market that is already suffering?

And how will they be stopping pop-ups? Giving all users a proprietary browser that is pop-up killer enabled?

Yeah.. wondering the same thing..

That's a good bet. Hell, they are the anti-spam people. Fuckers.

yep. the earthlink browser will kill the popup automatically
http://support.earthlink.net/support...popup_blocker/

O I see, it is a downloadable tool. They don't force it on their subscribers... yet. I wouldn't have put it past them though.

no, from what I understand, they are offering it as a downloadable tool right now, but as of a certain date, it will be standard on all earthlink browsers.

Do you have a link to a story about this? Popups have too many useful functions for an ISP to just block them all. A lot of flash sites open popups, some sites have navigation popups, etc. It must be optional or on a per-site basis, I would think.

SpaceAce

I'd welcome a day when the web wasn't overwhelmed with so many damned popups. I use exit consoles, since people are already leaving, but if you couldn't survive without popups, maybe you're not cut out for an entertainment business...

From the link you posted: "The free final version will become available for download later this year and will include extra features. Before your preview release expires, EarthLink will prompt you to download and install the final version of the Pop-Up Blocker."

That sounds like an optional tool to me. Users of the Beta version will be promted to download the final version. Maybe they aren't sure yet? Anyone with clean evidence?

hahahaha

You fucking kill me, man. Pop-ups kick ass.

Pop-ups and shady shit - that's what this industry is built on. Do you do ANY surfing, or do you just take pictures?

For most professional sponsors popups ARE a part of 'surviving' .

That's one of the many reasons why they are able to
pay per signup.

I think you are not cut out for adult entertainment business yourself.

Popups are not just for ads. They can be used for a variety of things. Granted mostly they are just ads. But it is a bad precedent for any ISP to mess with the funciontality of W3C approved coding.

How do you base that?

If this is in fact "optional", it still doesnt change things that much...Fact is that almost all surfers would prolly choose to turn off popups if they had a choice, and earthlink is making it very easy and affordable(its free) for the surfer to do so

If every new TV came equipped with a new program that would cut out all commercials with a switch of a button, that would effectively kill free programming(ABC, NBC, FOX)

what earthlink is doing is along the same lines...First its popups, then it will be banners, and who knows what else. This is a step in the wrong direction.

Now the good news is that it is my guess that earthlink will prolly be sued over this because they are altering the content of the websites by removing the popups...

I dunno if I agree that pop ups are a way of surviving...I do agree that they are a valuable tool when used properly...


But do you really think a pop up actually MAKES the sale...I mean your average porn buyer is gonna by somewhere...so a pop up will get their attention yeah...whether or not it closes the deal...I dunno. They still have to fill out the info and what not.


As for your average surfer, is the pop up gonna suddenly change their mind...like, "I wasn't really planning on buying any porn but when that thing popped up...man, I just had to." Not likely.

I'n my opinion the sale is made when the buyer's desires are matched by the seller's offerings...A pop up is a tool to speed along that match making process. But if we were without it do you think we'd suffer? HELL NO IMHO.

I think we'd be forced to figure out some new strategies, yes. But nothing beyond us. I see the adult industry as being light years beyond the mainstream as far as marketing techniques are concerned.

I think a pop up less web could be good for the adult industry. I think it may instill a little a bit of confidence in the timid newbie, who wants to surf around but hates the pop up hell he ends up in. I hear it alot and i can relate.

I think it could be a change for the better and maybe even a shot in the arm or all our pocket books, if researched and taken advantage of.

P_O_P_U_P_S...hmm must be an IE thing...
Opera kills them with a couple of clicks - add to that Earthlink can configure opera to show ads of their own choosing in a free give away version and charge their users to unlock the ads to gain a bit more revenue...

that is not the point...the point is that they are altering the content of a website witout permision of the webmaster

Sure, everyone hates popups...but everyone hates TV commercials too....should we eliminate that too? At what point do we stop?

Not only that killing pop ups is as simple as disabling js in netscrap.

you lose a vast amount of the web's functionality...many of these browsers are the same...except they are a bit more choosy in what js they block and what they don't...

There are alternatives to JavaScript.

Cool. Pop-ups suck.

Popups do suck, but I think you're missing the point, here. Once they decide that they can fuck with YOUR page and change what you put there, it isn't much of a step to blocking all banners and referer code. Sure, you can always come up with ways to get around it by not linking directly to your sponsor code, etc, but they will find a way to defeat that. It's a lot better for everyone in this business if that fight never starts.

SpaceAce

Agreed, I personaly find them agrovating when I am out there looking at the compatition:P

It wont make the sale but it creates an extra opportunity
to make one.
And that's needed if the initial site didnt do
it and you're paying your webmaster $40 for each $3 signup..

That's why i said popups are serious business
for big sponsors that deal with huge quantities of
'per signup' traffic.

Aslk Marc De how he feels.. :winkwink:

its okay for every thing that gets blocked they find ways around it

I actually think this is a good thing. While "normal" popups might be slightly comparable to tv commercials, it's too easy to abuse them. Imagine if there were tv commercials that would lock your remote (what alt f4 popups are to most users), make the next 30 channels you looked at filled with commercials (popup chains) until you shut down your tv and restarted it (popup chains in circles), or even shut down your tv (popup hells that kill your browser)? What if, when you zapped away from the tv commercials, your tv would automatically zap to some other commercials? Wouldn't you be mightily pissed off?

Personally, I think the future of ads on the internet lies in something completely different, and more acceptable to the user: timed ad pages. That is, an ad page is shown for, say, 30 seconds, and then the real page loads (ofcourse, still containing a banner ad for the sponsor shown on the ad page). This is already possible with javascript or flash, and most certainly is a lot more efficient and a lot less intrusive than popups.

Not only that I see alot of adspace devoted to cool looking ads that aren't very productive...

I think traffic filtration is of higher importance than actual ads...at the outset at least...

Why sell eskimoes ice cubes...?


I'm amazed at the time people spend trying to force something on a surfer that's already chosen against that thing...


Why sell eskimoes ice cubes...?

Good point Meta. Sort of similar to the Gator case. But, rather than earning revenue from someone else's hard work, they're just killing off one of a web owner's source of revenue!

And think about the people who could sue. In theory, the webmaster of EVERY site an earthlink user visits that has a popup.

Now, i despise popups as much as the next guy. But this isn't good news.

yeah, but if you don't use popups, you got nothing to worry about.... :Graucho

True, but i still think it's going to lead to some legal issues with major sites that use popups. I don't use popups. Evil bloody things :winkwink:

You only have yourselves to blame for creating pop up hell pages.

This is good news and if you cant survive without pop ups and other annoying junk then tough shit .

I seen their ad for the first time yesterday. It was a shocker. I think it's good. It will level off the playing feild so you dont have to make your site suck bigtime just to play the game fairly with everyone else. I hope everyone else follows.

I can see what'll happen: 1/2 of them will block the pop ups, and 1/2 won't, and it'll be the consumers decision to get a good ISP or not. If they get a shitty one, then every damn webpage on the net will be bombarding them with pop-ups, since no one will care about them, since half of the surfers are pop-up free :)

The thing I wonder about is more along the lines of all the major sites that use popups as a means of showing content or allowing people to email their support people, or allowing people to signup to their service, etc. A great many sites use this as an easy unobtrusive way of doing things.

Good. I wish Microsoft would do the same. I do not think we need popups. There are other ways to make more money.

The truth about popups:
1. They are very annoying.
2. They hurt sales of webmasters.

Before you say popups bring extra money, let me tell you something. Sponsors want to squeeze every penny out of their traffic so they put 12 chained console traps to make the most cash possible. Now a surfer clicks your banner and hits that shit when he tries to leave.
He tries another site and another site and the results are the same. Half his hair is pulled out in frustration and he seldom clicks on banners anymore cause he knows it means a fight to escape.

Once popups are gone the net will be more fun to surf for everyone and people won't be scared to click banners.
It would be nice to see a banner and be able to check it out without worrying about the barrage of consoles that will follow if you decide not to join.

I don't care if your happy or not about this. Popups will be finished in a year or two. I just hope it becomes a standard feature to block popups in the next IE update.

There goes your exit sales from sponsors also. Some that don't pay on exit sales (or a % of the exit links) say they do it to be able to afford to pay you the higher sign up payout which could also mean lower payouts eventually.

I make quite a few sales on sponsors exit consoles.

Although you can just turn your Java off and it wont happed either :Graucho

If the surfer disables javascript they lose out on some positive features. Not everything done in javascript is annoying to the surfer. Many websites are using javascript to display or open their links. Try surfing the web for a few days without javascript and you'll see how often you need to turn it on to view things.

Why should the surfer have to lose out on every positive feature of javascript just to avoid the popups?

Right now the surfer is being fucked with javascript on or off.
When will netscape & IE have a feature to kill popups? I know Opera is already doing this now.