Gator and Pop-ups:
The report on Gator Advertisements by Ben Edelman got lots of blogs and media discussing about Gator and Popups. Most people think that pop ups stink and Gator has taken it a step further and is helping your competitors post stuff to the user when they come to your site.
First Q, why is this looking unethical? Showing the user lots of options, which are in context, is good, right? When Google puts ads related to the users search on its site, it seems good, but when Gator does it, everyone shouts “Stink”. One reason is that it allows my lesser competitors persuade my users using different persuasive tactics. Google counters this by ranking the ads for a keyword by the ad popularity, which cannot be controlled by the companies.
Second Q, why don’t we like pop ups? Since the first time Popups have been used to show which are not context specific to what the user is doing, so we have lost interest in them and have learnt not to click them. Showing users irrelevant stuff through Gator will bring their own demise, it not already brought by the bad PR it got due to this article. Their algorithms should not be targeted in figuring out when the ad should be shown to the user, but if the ad is useful to the user.
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