It's war on Web pop-up ads

Pop-up ads, the Internet dandelions that sprout unexpectedly and incessantly as you surf the Web, are suddenly getting mowed by some of the biggest names in cyberspace.

EarthLink, the country's No. 3 Internet provider, this week became the latest high-profile Net firm to declare war on pop-ups when it released software that blocks them. Other firms include America Online.

The backlash is hardly surprising given how much Internet users say they detest the ads.

"I use the Internet for work and find it very annoying to have pop-ups on my computer screen," said Karen Wright, a Minnesota State University at Mankato employee. "I would like to see these pop-ups banished."

EarthLink's Monday release of its Pop-Up Blocker software provides relief from pop-ups that appear on sites such as the New York Times on the Web, Macworld, Fortune.com and, yes, even TwinCities.com, which features Pioneer Press content.

An EarthLink TV spot trumpets the software in a brazen bid to capitalize on pop-up hatred among Internet users.

"We're trying to create a hassle-free environment" for users, said Rob Kaiser, a marketing vice president for Atlanta-based EarthLink. It never made any money off such ads, he said.

In other pop-up developments this year:

• Google, the Web's best-known search engine, helped trigger the anti-pop-up war when it called them "annoying" and banned them from its site in January.

• Sites such as the women-oriented iVillage and InfoSpace, which runs the WebCrawler search engine, more recently banned the ads.

• Web browsers such as Opera and Mozilla have added pop-up blockers that keep unsolicited Web windows from opening.

The anti-pop-up movement is a dramatic reversal from last summer, when revenue-starved Web sites still in shock over the dot-com bust embraced pop-up ads as potential lifesavers.

Consumers howled, and scads of small companies offering ad-killing software appeared.

Even America Online, the No. 1 U.S. Internet provider known for bombarding its members with marketing messages, has caved in. It recently cut the ads to some members by as much as 90 percent, spokesman Nicholas Graham said.

AOL also lets members turn off pop-ups while on AOL Time Warner properties, he said.

But pop-ups are far from extinct. Web sites continue to use them, and not all browsers will block them.

Even though the AOL-owned Netscape browser is based on Mozilla technology, it reportedly won't have pop-up-blocking features when released in final form later this year. Netscape officials did not return calls for comment.

Expecting AOL to release a Web browser that blocks ads from AOL Time Warner properties such as Fortune.com would be naive, said marketing expert Frank Catalano, co-author of "Internet Marketing for Dummies."

Pop-up ads (along with pop-under ads, which appear underneath instead of atop browser windows) help support free content on the Internet, just as TV ads do for broadcasting, said Greg Stuart, CEO and president of the Internet Advertising Bureau.

He acknowledged the ads' intrusive nature but said they haven't been overused because of the potential for user backlash. "It's kind of a perfect system of self-regulation."

A recent study said people will tolerate three pop-up ads an hour, said Jeffrey Graham, vice president of client development at Dynamic Logic, a research firm that measures online advertising effectiveness.

"I think most publishers understand that pop-ups have got to be moderated," Graham said.

Orbitz, a Chicago-based travel site that makes heavy use of pop-up ads, said it tries not to overload consumers. It limits its ad placement to one site per user per day.

Orbitz isn't worried about a pop-up backlash, said Geoff Silvers, director of e-marketing.

"We're not against people blocking our marketing advertising," he said. People who complain about Orbitz pop-under ads are directed to a Web site to download pop-up stopping software, he said.

Pop-up advertising is dominated by obscure advertisers with great reach. The four largest — X10, Gator, Bonzi and Travelzoo — reached 61.9 million of 121.8 million home Internet users last month.

That's one of out every two home Internet users, said Max Kalehoff, a senior analyst at ComScore Media Metrix, a firm that measures Internet traffic.

"ComScore is certainly not seeing a slowdown in the usage of pop-ups, Kalehoff said. "The tactic has permeated the Internet experience."