Drawing the Line

I have never had much of a beef with advertising on websites. Providing good content usually costs money, and I can respect the fact that people need to support themselves and their work.

I don’t even particularly mind the sites that use underlined text with little ads that pop up when you roll your mouse over them. I don’t see it as particularly well targeted advertising, since what pops up usually isn’t even relevant to the article.

However, I have to draw the line somewhere. I was just reading an article on Anandtech, and I accidentally rolled my mouse over some underlined text. But instead of the usual ad box, an entire window with full video and audio popped up.

AND IT STARTED PLAYING ALL BY ITSELF!

I don’t care how much money that crap makes for your website. That is so completely inappropriate, I have no words.

Anandtech did redeem itself, though. I was looking for a place to submit a complaint about those ads, and there is an option to turn them off entirely. Furthermore, it actually works!