The Missing Link(s)

Kevin Lee comments today, on MarketingWonk, about the Ad Blocking component of the new Norton Personal Firewall 2004 and the fact that it blocks PPC ads including Google Adwords. Google adwords show up without the title (which is the link text) so you just see the body copy and written URL). It also blocks all affiliate ads - images and text - from Linkshare, CJ, and others. In fact, at Linkshare.com it even removes the log-in fields so Linkshare partners can no longer log into the site.

This is a tough issue. I have no problem with ad blocking, and have personally used a number of programs to block ads. For me the goal was improved browsing performance (especially back when I had the god-awful Direcway Satellite connection - do not believe a word of those infomercials!) and the removal of banners and pop-ups. I got Norton 2004 about 6 weeks ago, for the virus and firewall features, and immediately noticed the 'aggressive' behavior. The default configurations block anything that might be an ad, based on servers the content might come from (ad.doubleclick.net), paths commonly used to hold and serve ads (/banner/), and file types (flash, animated gif). There is no control to block graphics and allow text through.

Ad blockers have been chipping away and the effectiveness of online advertising for several years, but nobody was too worried because penetration of these utilities was very low. With this functionality now a core component of the most popular Windows Utility Suite in the world, and text-based advertising so prevalent, everybody is going to wake up to this one very quickly.

The core issue of course, is what an ad is and when should users control what they see. Paid placements and text links are clearly ads, but do they have the same negative effects as graphic ads?

Web users face real problems - spam, scumware, and adware for example. Aggressive ads like pop-ups and those horrible new 'crawl overs' continue to motivate users to take up arms. Norton and the rest make very good money fighting all these problems, and since the users are already confused and the software interfaces rather unfriendly, more controls/preferences are unlikely to help. And both sides of the argument are elevating the rhetorical debate. Next thing we all know either Congress or Microsoft is going to get involved, and neither of those options ever end well.

Affiliate marketers, even the networks like Linkshare, probably don't have enough sway to get Norton to reset the defaults, or ad a 'text vs graphics' switch, but I'm sure Google could at least get Symantec to sit down and talk. (Interestingly, Overture ads are not currently blocked.) Symantec could add a simple 'text, graphics, or both' option to the program and ship with graphics on and text off by default. If they don't, get ready to hear a lot more about this subject.

Update: MarketingBlog compiles lots of links on this subject.

Posted by Craig Danuloff at March 16, 2004 04:33 PM