A recent study done by PricewaterhouseCoopers, shows the revenue of Internet ad by format (Figure 1a).⁽¹⁾ In the 4^th quarter of 1999, interstitials originated at 4% of all ad revenue with banners being the most productive. Although a year later, we see a 1 percent increase in pop-up ads and a substantial 15% decrease in banner revenue (Figure 1b). In these models, we observe that there are new mediums being introduced to consumers. With new types of ads, there are certainly new defenses the consumer can utilize.

The use of Internet filtering software is one of the easiest and most complete ways to erase pop-up ads and any other material that the user feels is not appropriate. With over 4 million users world wide Webwasher.com is a global leader in Internet filters (Business Wire). They developed a software that contains independently operating filters that can target a large variety of content ranging from cookies, potential viruses, undesired content from Web pages, and pop-up ads. All the user has to do is set up the system as he or she likes and Webwasher does the rest. In a test performed by Webwasher, 79% of a users network was taken up by unwanted cookies (Business Wire). What Webwasher does is stop those unwanted cookies from entering into the users computer. This means that the computer functions faster and more time is saved by the user since they do not have to waste time closing unwanted browsers.

How Can People Protect Themselves?

In response to the rise of pop-up and under ads companies have created programs for the personal computer that stop ads from loading on your screen. They are not the same as software from companies such as Webwasher because they do not stop ads from entering into your computer. What they do is sit in your computers tray and wait for ads to appear, then they attack and dismantle the ad before it can be loaded. Imagine a watchdog sitting in your front lawn -- that is basically what these programs are like. PopUp Killer, PopUp Stopper and CrushPop2000 are all examples of that watchdog, with some minor differences. The most basic of the three is CrushPop2000. However it does keep track of the number of windows crushed and most of all, it is free from MegaSolutions. Higher up the scale is PopUP Stopper with PopUP Killer being the best and oldest. Created in 1994 PopUp Killer is the original ad stopper. The amusing part about the last two is along with counting the amount of windows crushed, the user can also enable the system to give a sound off when it kills a pop-up, just so you know it is really at work.

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