With the recent MySpace embarrassment delivering spy-ware to millions of teenagers, and other online advertising related bad press I have begun to think about who should be responsible for the advertising on a web site.
My personal feeling is that ultimately it is up to the site, the people who deliver the content that people actually want to see, to ensure that the content delivered is appropriate and “safe”. MySpace’s passing of blame over to their advertising “partner” is unacceptable as far as I am concerned.
The issue is not just limited to trojan style installation of back doors on to peoples computers, but the content and layout of many banners is becoming questionable. Here in Japan where everything flashes, several times a day I will end up on a website with 3 or 4 banners flashing black/white or red/green very quickly. It makes the site incredibly difficult to read, but there is no real point in complaining to the site owners – that advertising is what generates a large portion of their revenue. Who are they going to listen to – me? An individual user who technically costs them money, or their advertiser?
Television stations, newspapers, radio stations and many other mediums of advertising all seem to be able to ensure the security and appropriateness of their content. So why can’t companies who have an online presence? Mistakes will always be made, but this “side-stepping” of responsibility of the major content providers is making me nervous. I feel that the liability should be theirs, after all – their site is the reason you are at the web page in the first place.
I hope that very soon some level of sensibility enters this game. Surely the “smarter” advertisers understand that delivering unsafe / visually distracting advertisements will drive people to start blocking their content as many have done with pop-up blocking in web browsers – which has now become a fairly standard feature.
I have a feeling that we will start to see home Internet routers offering this type of subscription based blocking service very soon (I have this already set up at home but this isn’t something that is easy to set-up for the average Internet user). Blocking of this content – and maintaining a list of servers that deliver the content is not hard to do, and if you block it the right way – it will not affect the layout and readability of the site – just the revenue of the agency and in the end the site owner.
I don’t mind advertising on sites that doesn’t detract from my browsing experience. I actually quite like the concept of contextual advertising – at least the ad’s are generally about something I would be interested in. I hope the likes of AdWords and other Internet advertising aggregators win the war, advertising is an important revenue stream that keeps a lot of the Internet free for general users – and I really like not having to pay for stuff.
The Ad Serving by Troy Kelly, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
