• by Masha Geller , July 29, 2002

The talk of the town yesterday was iVillage, a popular women’s site that announced it would eliminate most pop-up ads from its site because these ads are especially annoying to women, the site’s main audience.

The reaction of the advertising world was somewhat split. It’s probably safe to say that consumers rejoiced. One of our readers even wrote, “At Last! Please say this is just the start of a revolution and return to sanity. The Web could only remain a 3rd world bazaar with insistent vendors offering things we don't want yanking at our shirtsleeves for so long.”

On the other hand, people in the ad business questioned whether websites can really afford to get picky at this time, especially since the ad dollar well is fairly dry?

Some of the pop-up aficionados pointed to a November 2001 Dynamic Logic study, which showed that people really don’t mind pop-ups all that much. At the time, Dynamic Logic researchers found that people generally accept distracting advertising to support their preferred content. Nearly 85% of the study respondents agreed with the following statement: "Advertising is necessary to support the websites I like to visit and keep them free, even if the ads distract me from what I am doing." When study respondents were asked about how many pop-ups per hour were appropriate for a site they like to visit: 78% said one pop-up per hour, 38% said three or more, while 22% said none.

Of course, that was in November. Judging by iVillage’s decision, things have changed dramatically since then. I have to admit that I joyously destroy almost every pop-up on my screen before it even gets a chance to load, but I also have to admit that I’ve clicked through the Orbitz pop-up and actually ended up buying plane tickets once. But I’m not a good test subject.

So where exactly is the line between a good advertising vehicle and a frustrated consumer?