Re: Replacing Banner Ads (Revisited)

From: Antonio Romero <culture_at_culturekiosque.com>
Date: Fri 10 Mar 2000 01:23:12 -0800

BRAD JENSEN WROTE:
> Yes, I've been thinking of creating a program that
> encapsulate IE5, with a better interface, and then
> replaces ad banners on the page with ad banners from
> my selection. I'm not sure if anti-hijacking laws would
> apply.

Brad, I'd consider suing if someone essentially
hijacked my content by removing ads and inserting their
own. I would certainly take measures to block that
browser from viewing my site (a simple matter, so long
as the user agent wasn't spoofed to look like IE or
Netscape).

At that point you've moved beyond the filtering of ads
out of my content (which is bad enough, if ads in
content is a significant part of my revenue model) into
reselling my content (i.e. you get revenue off it and I
don't). I work for a site that produces very
sophisticated and hard-to-match editorial, as both an
editor and the webmaster; if you make money blocking my
ads, and I still get paid for my impression, then...
I'm not thrilled, because you've cut my clickthroughs,
but okay... fine... hard to prevent that.

But adding your own ads to my pages at the browser is
too much like copying content from every site on the
web without permission, and adding your own ads to make
your own money... My lawyers would come looking for
you, and I'd do all I could to spread the word about
you to other site owners who would no doubt try to find
grounds to send law-posses of their own...

-Antonio Romero Webmaster, Culturekiosque.com




Received on Fri Mar 10 2000 - 03:23:12 CST