…or maybe just morons. ZDNet reports on a study finding that “78 percent of respondents claimed they found pop-up ads ‘very annoying,’” yet statistics in another study show that “pop-up impressions jumped from 1.2 billion to 4.9 billion between January 2002 and September 2002.” One explanation offered is that “Current click-through rates are inflated because many Internet users are not familiar with how to close the pop-up window.” Even though I never underestimate the stupidity of the average user, that just can’t be right. I think that for whatever reason some people just can’t resist clicking on those stupid pop-ups, ensuring that they get enough hits to stick around. DON’T DO IT! With Mozilla as my browser I can’t remember the last time I saw a pop-up ad (newer versions of Netscape have the same capability, I believe), and even with Micro$oft IE there are applications to filter out pop-ups. Use them. Love them. And stop clicking on those damn ads!
