• by Masha Geller , June 2, 2002

I hate to start the week off on a dissonant note, but this following announcement release has been bugging me since Friday afternoon.

The company is Blazing Logic, a division of Lions Pride Enterprises Inc. Late Friday afternoon, the announced the release of NoPop!, an anti-pop-up/pop-under software application.

According to the announcement, NoPop! destroys the pop-up advertisements that appear when browsing various websites and is available as free download for a ten-day trial followed by a one-time registration fee of $24.95.

The press release quotes the company founder and president as saying that the new tool will not only “improve the end-user's online experience, but it also ensures that Web publishers and advertisers are maximizing their campaign budget by servicing only the Internet users who want to receive pop-up and pop-under advertising.”

I’m not too worried about this evolving into a major problem for online advertisers, especially at that price (since consumers aren’t really willing to pay for much of anything online, let alone ad blockers), but that’s not really the issue.

Here’s the real kicker. Blazing Logic is actually a fairly well known producer, buyer and seller of pop-ups.

How do they explain the paradox? According to Manuel Coats, founder and CEO of LPE, the company’s goal with the NoPop! product is to “provide Internet users with an option to rid themselves of pop-up advertisements while ensuring that our clients, Web publishers and advertisers reach only those who want to view their ads.”

Sounds to me like they’re shooting themselves in the foot.