Pop-up ad

File:Pop-up ads.jpg

Dozens of pop-up ads covering a desktop.

Pop-up ads or pop-ups are a form of online advertising on the World Wide Web intended to attract web traffic or capture email addresses. It works when certain web sites open a new web browser window to display advertisements. The pop-up window containing an advertisement is usually generated by JavaScript, but can be generated by other means as well.

A variation on the pop-up window is the pop-under advertisement, which opens a new browser window hidden under the active window. Pop-unders do not interrupt the user immediately and are not seen until the covering window is closed, making it more difficult to determine which web site opened them.

Pop-up blocking

Opera was the first major browser to incorporate tools to block pop-up ads; the Mozilla browser later improved on this by blocking only pop-ups generated as the page loads. In the early 2000s, all major web browsers except Internet Explorer allowed the user to block unwanted pop-ups almost completely. In 2004, Microsoft released Windows XP SP2, which added pop-up blocking to Internet Explorer.

Most modern browsers come with pop-up blocking tools; third-party tools tend to include other features such as ad filtering.

"Pop-ups"

• Certain types of downloaded content, such as images, free music, and others, can cause pop ups, especially pornographic sites' pop ups. Also, the pop ups will sometimes look like ordinary web pages, and the name of the site will show up in a search bar. Many websites use pop-ups to display information without disrupting the page currently open. For example, if you were to fill in a form on a web page and needed extra guidance, a pop-up would give you extra information without causing loss of any information already entered into the form. Most pop-up blockers will allow this kind of pop-up. However, some will reload the page, causing loss of any information that had been entered.
• Some web based installers, such as that used by McAfee, use a pop-up to install software.
• On many internet browsers, holding down the ctrl key while clicking a link will allow it to bypass the popup filter.
• Clicking (even accidentally) on one pop-up may lead to other pop-up ads opening, especially pornographic pop-ups.

Circumventing pop-up blockers

Advertisers such as Casale Media continually seek ways to circumvent such restrictions. For example, some pop-up ads are generated using Adobe Flash. Since pop-up blockers only block the JavaScript method, the Flash method bypasses the pop-up blocker.

A combination of a banner ad and a popup window is the "hover ad", which uses DHTML to appear in front of the browser screen. With the use of JavaScript, an advertisement can be superimposed over a webpage in a transparent layer. This advertisement can appear as almost anything the author of the advertisement wants. For example, an advertisement can contain an Adobe Flash animation linking to the advertiser's site. An advertisement can also look like a regular window. Because the advertisement is a part of the web page, it cannot be blocked with third-party ad blockers such as Adblock or by using custom style sheets. DHTML ads can be very CPU intensive, sometimes bogging down older computers to the point of unusability.

Pop-under ads

Pop-under ads are similar to pop-up ads, but the ad window appears hidden behind the main browser window rather than superimposed in front of it. As pop-up ads became widespread, many users learned to immediately close the popup ads that appeared over a site without looking at them. Pop-under ads do not immediately impede a user's ability to view the site content, and thus usually remain unnoticed until the main browser window is closed, leaving the user's attention free for the advertisement. Pop-under ads were first introduced by ExitExchange corporation in 1999. ExitExchange.com filed for the patent in 2000 on pop-under advertising. After years of controversy and numerous articles on the pop-under patent (see references), the patent was awarded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in April and June of 2008. The respective patent numbers are 7,386,555 and 7,353,229. These first patent 7,386,555 is related to the method of opening a pop-under ad from a toolbar or software application on a computing device, and the 7,353,229 patent covers the method used to open pop-unders from an embedded script found within a media file (e.g. javascript code found in a web page). Such methods are used by thousands of advertisers on the Internet. The pop-under ad is the first Interactive Advertising Bureau ad unit to have received a patented status. Although the pop-under ad is ubiquitous with annoying methodologies it still is used by major publishers such as CNN.com and Wall Street Journal.

Pop-up dismissal

Users of websites and web applications continuously experience unwanted pop up ads through the course of their normal interaction with a web browser. Ordinarily users respond by dismissing the pop-up through the "close" or "cancel" feature of the window hosting the pop-up. Because this is a typical response, some authors of pop-up advertising depend on this, and create on-screen buttons or controls that look similar to a "close" or "cancel" option. When the user chooses one of these "simulated cancel" options, however, the button performs an unexpected or unauthorized action (such as opening a new pop-up, or running unauthorized commands on the user's system).

Because the technologies for web development and design allow an author to draw any kind of "simulated" cancel option imaginable, some users refuse to click on or interact with any item inside a pop-up window whatsoever.

See also

• Ad filtering
• Ad serving
• Adware and Spyware
• Malware
• Junkmail
• Interstitial webpage
• 1-800 Contacts — which sued an advertising company over its provision of pop-up ads
• Messaging spam
• List of pop-up blocking software
• In-session phishing

Notes

• Adams, Cecil. "What's up with popup ads?". The Straight Dope. October 15, 2004.
• Zabunov, S. "From Annoyance to Pleasure - The Artistic Popup Approach". May 12, 2006.
• US Patent 7,386,555 "Post-session internet advertising system"
• US Patent 7,353,229 "Post-session internet advertising system"

External links

• How To Stop Internet Popups - entry in wikiHow
• Pop-under ads may hit publisher wallets