General thoughts on Internet adverts - block or not?

[Ric_]

I personally believe that the Internet would not run without the aid of advertising... in the same way as commercial TV wouldn't. I also believe that students don't find them particularly distracting either.

I'm not talking about EduGeek or any other particular site here, but what are people's views on Internet advertising? I'm particularly interested in people's opinions on adverts that support educational resources - things like Teachers.TV, TeachTube, Teach-ICT, etc.

Do you think that sites will ever begin to prevent access to those users that decide not to display there ads?

Given the choice, would you remove/block ads?

[sparkeh]

Interesting, I was just thinking about this after reading about ads in the Spiceworks topic.
Personally I don't mind relevant adverts in resources that are aimed at adults. SW is a great example as it is a superb resource that is funded by ads, its an essential part of my management software that wouldn't be free without ads, though it seems that ads are being blocked at LA level which admittedly makes me a uncomfortable about using the software. All the ads in SW are IT related so I cool with that, if they started trying to sell me completely unrelated products I would not be as comfortable.

I think that we may reach a stage where access is blocked if you don't enable the ads, after all its their funding model and you don't get to see restricted content on subscription sites if you don't pay, you could argue it is a very similar situation.

What I would not like to see is adverts creeping into child related resources.

[p858snake]

I didn't reinstall ad block after i deleted the wrong firefox =(, unfortunately sites have started to hit me with automated videos and sound making ads (not edugeek, always whitelisted) and have twisted my arm to do it again.

[TheLibrarian]

I'm happier with the less flashy / intrusive ads, and I particularly hate ad servers leaving tracking cookies.

I'd even go as far as watching / clicking ads to help provide revenue stream to keep content such as EduGeek provides free.

I know some of the EduGeek ads are blocked somewhere along the line here (not by us AFAIK), and I have wondered if the please don't block banner could be replaced with a link to an advertiser with a plea to visit this to support EduGeek.

[pete]

It really depends on the implementation.

Does the presence of adverts mean a 2-page article is split across 6 pages, interspersed with adverts?
Does the advert get in the way of using the resource / website? i.e doing stupid things on mouseover, using sound (of any type).
If it doing stupid things with flash? i.e is an advert in one tab causing the browser to grind?

An appropriate restrained use of adverts is fine.

[localzuk]

I don't mind most ads. The only ones I dislike are those that play sounds automatically and when an otherwise innocuous website has pornographic or otherwise inappropriate adverts though. Makes life difficult at work!

I do click on ads around the net sometimes, as they are often relevant to something I'm looking for.

[Domino]

The sites I know I can trust to have meaningful, inoffensive ads (edugeek, the register) I allow ads from, where as all others are blocked - this is at work.

At home I let all ads through - in all honesty they're easily ignored for the most part, and it allows sites to continue running, so I've nothing against it.

[CyberNerd]

unnecessary bandwidth.

[ricki]

Hi

I dont believe that adverts are bad but they do use bandwidth and when you only have a limited amount you make a choice and I choose to give band width to education bits of the internet.

Richard

[Arcath]

I don't mind them (not that flash ever last long enough to read them). I hate the ones that fill the page and start playing when your mouse hovers over them....

Another pet hate is when www.annoyingadverts.com is down, and causes the pages to load slowly whilst the browser trys to download from a server thats not there.

[Flakes]

from my personal view:

I don't mind ads as long as they are relevant to the site I am on.

As an ICT Technician:

all Adverts should be blocked, mainly because you do not know where kids/teachers may end up, an ad can look harmless however may end up leading to somewhere less safe/secure leading to spyware/adware/viruses, there's also the case that an add server that serves one type of advert my also serve adult ads which are unsuitable for school.

[pete]

There's also the issue that a compromised adserver is a great way to deliver exploit code for the latest flash vuln.

[Ric_]

There's also the issue that a compromised adserver is a great way to deliver exploit code for the latest flash vuln.

But that's true of any website so IMHO the argument doesn't hold - unless you want to pre-vet every single site that the pupils visit

[pete]

But that's true of any website so IMHO the argument doesn't hold - unless you want to pre-vet every single site that the pupils visit

True, any webserver can deliver a malicious flash file, but an adserver operation is more likely to be targetted for compromise than (say) a random flash widget on Edugeek.net itself because there's a bigger potential payoff.

And we do block adverts for kids, simply because they're not discriminating at all in what they click on.

[Dos_Box]

We know of at least one LEA that blanket blocks ads for all schools. Many of you will think 'good!'. There is a a problem with this though. Most of the sites, especially resources like EduGeek, whoes resources are used by schools, at no cost tothemselves, rely on ad-revenue to keep running. The vast amjority of these sites won't have offensive adverts on there and teh content of the site is 100% innoffensive. Now, this is the big legal part. Does the govt, a any level, wether centrally or local, have teh right to spend taxpayers money on deliberately preventing someone legally earning an income? It's not e-safety or any other excuse they care to roll out, as dodgy sites would be blocked by filer lists anyway and browsers often have blacklist checking built in now. Next week I;m going to be addresing this issue, and knockign on somevery senior doors as well as getting he legal position clarified, but to put it simply. Tax payers money should not be used to put legal businesses in financial trouble, considering that it is these very businesses that are providing the taxes!