Web advertising hit a new low recently with a completely obnoxious new ad technology--banner ads that leap out and stomp over site content for several seconds before retreating to their proper place.

I've never been crazy about SUVs, but were I to buy one, it would not be of the brand that has been interfering with the use of my favourite news site for the past couple of weeks.

Every time a page loads, the vehicle swoops down from its banner and prevents me from reading the first few stories until it has strutted its stuff. It's got to the point where I think twice about visiting the site.

I'm beginning to wonder if advertisers check any vestiges of common sense or courtesy at the door when they go to work.

Their excesses keep growing and growing, from discreet text ads that were quite acceptable through banners to pop-ups, pop-overs and pop-unders to this new overlay technology.

And the fact that site owners go along with them is appalling.

Yes, I realize that advertising revenue is precious. It keeps many sites in business.

But that's no excuse for the growth in ads that assault users rather than persuade them.

The phenomenon is not unique to the Web. E-mail advertising, also known as spam, is not only intrusive, it's theft of users' mailbox space and of their connection time when they collect their mail.

Unlike postal mail, which can pile up with no penalty to the recipient, e-mail is often subject to mailbox size limits, and every piece of garbage pushing sex aids, hair loss remedies and low mortgage rates is using space meant for legitimate messages.

At its worst, it fills up the mailbox, causing desirable messages to bounce.

How bad can it get? I have a Hotmail account that receives hundreds of spam messages a week. I've given up trying to use it--the only non-spam I see in it now is mail from MSN, inviting me to pay for extra storage because mine is full (fat chance!).

With the growth of short messaging (SMS) on cell phones and always-on messaging on handhelds, the problem becomes bigger.

There have already been several well-publicized abuses of SMS, in which companies sent out ads that subscribers had to pay to receive.

Carriers, recognizing a public relations disaster in the offing, quickly reversed those charges, but there's no real mechanism in place yet to control advertisers who discover peoples' SMS addresses and bombard them with ads or solicitations or "free" coupons.

Handhelds, with their limited memory capacity and high-priced connection plans, are equally vulnerable.

Users, in the main, see no reason to pay for an alleged service whose only purpose is to pepper them with solicitations. They get enough of that every day on T.V. and radio. And while vendors are busy pushing "always on" and "ubiquitous computing", I wonder if they're considering the implications for the abuse of the user. I can guarantee that advertisers and spammers are.

Greiner is vice-president of technical services for Ipsos-NPD Canada Inc. in Toronto. lynng@ca.inter.net

COPYRIGHT 2002 Plesman Publications
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