Blogtrek

Blogtrek

2003/06/15

Discovery Channel spams?

I found a disconcerting thing when I went to CNN this morning. Immediately a large black square threw up in my face, and I heard a loud boom. I do not expect that when I visit a news site. I expect the news. This booming black square was caused by the Discovery Channel throwing a popup ad in my face. I have seen lots of popup ads on the Web; sites insist on putting these in user's faces instead of using space on the web site itself. One can use Norton Internet Security to block ads in general on the Web, and AnalogX's Pow! and Panicware's Popup Stopper can be used to get rid of popup ads, (although Pow! on occasion pows a legitimate page). Most of these popup ads come from telemarketers or spammers; in fact, popup ads, in my opinion, are a form of spam. Therefore, when the Discovery Channel does it, it spams.

That is disturbing behavior, coming from a place as highly respected as the Discovery Channel. Still, spam is spam, we need to get rid of spam, and Discovery's popup ads, like all popup ads are spam. Therefore I have emailed the Discovery Channel about this ad and am going to boycott the channel as long as they throw this booming ad in my face; further, I shall urge my friends and associates not to watch the Discovery Channel. There are other educational channels I can turn to: PBS, Arts and Entertainment, and Animal Planet, to name a few. When the popup ads stop, I will consider watching Discovery Channel again.

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