Techdirt is off for the long weekend! We'll be back with our regular posts tomorrow.
Advertisers Upset Over Norton's Ad Blocking
from the such-is-life dept
From Broadband reports we learn that Symantec’s latest Norton Personal Firewall is upsetting many advertisers by showing certain ads (most noticeably Google’s text ads) but making them unclickable. Of course, my first reaction is… why? If the point of the firewall is to block ads, that’s one thing. But, how does it do any good to show the ad, but make it unclickable? Who is that protecting? If it were hiding the ad completely, I could understand it. But showing it without the link doesn’t seem to help anyone. However, as for the advertisers being upset, I doubt anyone other than the marketers really cares. If individuals want to make an effort to avoid dealing with the everyday bombardment of advertising, that’s their right.
Comments on “Advertisers Upset Over Norton's Ad Blocking”
Blocking ads since 2001
In 2001 I purchased Norton Internet Security, which includes an ad blocker.
It is not the best, but it has served its purpose well for the past three years.
I noticed, however, that after 2001 they stopped hyping it on the packaging. So much so, that I thought it no longer included the ad blocker.
who owns the computer?
The question is who owns and gets to control the computer. Obviously the advertisers want to control what shows up on the screen, forgetting that the computer belongs to the owner, not to them.
Norton Ad Blocking
I believe it now does not show the ads, but it also does not show ANY image of certain dimensions or proportions, thus excluding legitimate, non-ad images on many web sites.
Norton Internet Security
One significant problem is that Norton blocks pictures based on the image size, even if the picture is not clickable, is linked to nothing, and advertises nothing. Many pictures simply do not show up if you have Norton turned on, and it has nothing to do with advertising.