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Ad-blockers are a Mafia-style 'protection racket' – UK's Minister of Fun

Chika
Facepalm

Finally we get to the meat of the subject. The reason why ad blockers exist is because ads are becoming more intrusive. Just as television is stuffed full of adverts, reminders, bugs, dogs or whatever to the extent that it seems that companies are more interested in showing what is coming up next than what they are showing now, web pages are becoming stuffed full of ads that pop over, pop under, sometimes completely obscure, redirect, get embedded and generally annoy.

When I first came online back in the 90s, the most you might have expected was a simple ad banner. It got in nobody's way, it annoyed few. OK, it might have been animated but it was usually a GIF, not the flat out flash animations we expect today. Even here on El Reg the amount of banners, animations and whatnot got to a point where you might not be able to concentrate on the article in question! Enough people got fed up with this that ad blockers were developed and people used them.

Basically, Whittingdale is talking out of his arse but consider the reason why. He represents the Tory view of "fun" which means that he represents business. Part of that will almost certainly be that part which uses the very advertising that we farties block which hurts their bottom line and in turn hurts him and his ilk. What he needs to do is NOT criticise us folk for using ad blockers and NOT criticise the blockers themselves but investigate WHY people use blockers in the first place.

Advertising is seen as a way of amassing income, and marketing types don't seem to know when to stop, whether it is a simple static ad on a web page, product placement, embedded videos in a stream or Flash overkill. To them it seems that the more you advertise, the more you rake in. What they, and Whittingdale, need to realise is that there are limits to everything. A good, quality ad will do its own job and people will welcome it.

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