NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> ClickZ's Contrarian Concept of Framing
ONLINE-ADS>> ClickZ's Contrarian Concept of Framing
BULMASH.COM Sales (sales_at_bulmash.com)
Tue, 9 Dec 1997 11:22:30 -0800
On 5 Dec 97 at 18:51, Andy Bourland told a little bird who told
me:
> At 08:54 PM 12/3/97 -0500, Dolphin Marketing - Craig Snyder wrote:
> >I've been forced to delurk since no one has mentioned the lawsuit recently
> >settled here in the US regarding framing other sites' content.
> >
> >TotalNews framed content and then sold advertising around the framed
> >content.
>
> Interesting you should bring that up, Craig...
>
> I dropped by TotalNews for the first time ever last week and was
> delighted to see ClickZ framed in their site. You read it right: I was
> delighted!
>
> TotalNews framing ClickZ opens my content as well as my advertisers to
> thousands of new readers that may have never heard of us. The framing
> did nothing to obscure our content or our advertising. And I'm not
> proud -- heck, I'll take new readers from anyone who wants to send
> them my way...
>
> Rather than suing TotalNews, I'm tempted to write them a thank you
> note!
Here I can see Andy's point, and honestly, I'm almost tempted to wish
that Total News would highlight The WASHED-UPdate. On the other hand...
As I mentioned in an article on Push that I wrote for ClickZ, when you
set up a push channel on PointCast, your advertisers' ads will compete
for clicks/attention with the animated PointCast ads up in that top
right corner. Similarly, when your site is framed by TotalNews and they
display an ad, your advertiser's ad is in competition for clicks and
attention with the ads Total News is displaying. If I were advertising
on Andy's site, I'd be interested in knowing how much of his traffic is
coming in from sites where they're framing the content and displaying
their own ads as I wouldn't want to pay the same CPM for a
non-exclusive ad view as I was paying for an exclusive one.
Also, there are two additional problems. Since Total News can't know
what ad will come up on Andy's site and he can't know what ad will come
up on theirs it is possible that (totally unintentionally) the ad Total
News displayed could be from a direct competitor of mine. Even more
annoying, I might be doing a broad-based campaign and have bought ad
space from both of them, causing my ad to be displayed in both frames,
effectively paying twice for one ad.
To argue from a content creator's POV, irregardless of my own
advertising, when Total News frames my content and places their own ads
around it, it is effectively a republication. Look at the features of
the viewing in their frames as opposed to a direct link (where it
leaves their frameset to go to my site).
IN FRAMES:
* Their URL is constantly displayed in the location window of the
browser even when my content is the main feature.
* Their name and logo are being displayed along with / associated
with my content without my permission.
* Their advertisers are being displayed along with / associated
with my content without my permission.
The last doesn't seem like such a bad thing unless you consider that I
have certain principles and thus may not want to be associated with
certain advertisers or certain products. Say hypothetically that I
have a music site with a very youth-oriented slant and my demographic
would be a great target audience for Trojan condom ads. Let's also say
(VERY hypothetically) that I'm a devout Catholic and would NEVER accept
ads from Trojan, yet Total News could potentially use MY content to
help sell condoms. This becomes more than a simple matter of copyright
violation or financial damage, it is now a moral outrage.
Given, in Andy's mind, his link from Total News is a good thing. If he
believes it doesn't threaten his advertisers and he does not mind the
association with Total News and their advertisers, then it actually is
a good thing, because Andy gets more traffic.
BUT, as a publisher, it is my legal right to determine how my content
is displayed and with what advertisers it is associated. I cannot stop
(nor do I believe I should be able to stop) anyone from recommending it
or linking directly to it on ym server (non-frames), but beyond what is
allowed by "fair use" provisions in copyright law, I do have the right
to stop someone from effectively placing their own ads on/around it or
displaying their logo along with it. If you link to someone else's
content within your own frameset, you need their permission.
-Greg
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