• by June 28, 2000

A Miami judge a few days ago approved a class action lawsuit against America Online on behalf of AOL's hourly subscribers. The suit, which was first filed in March of last year, hinges on the complaint that pop-ups waste consumers' time and money.

According to the complaint, when pop-up ads appear on the screen, users can't access their email or the Internet until the ads have been clicked away. That's one of the qualities that so attracts us advertisers to interstitials - they have to be dealt with one way or another. But, interstitial opponents say this increases the amount of time users spend online, meaning that hourly subscribers ultimately pay more.

The lawyer who filed the suit says he will seek $15 to $20 million in damages on the grounds that the 2.5 million hourly AOL subscribers shouldn't be forced to pay for the time they spend viewing ads. The suit covers users paying $5.95 per month for three hours of access and $9.95 for five hours of service, but does not affect those users paying for unlimited access, which is the majority of AOL's subscribers.

The plaintiffs also say AOL should put the ads at the end of a session and ask customers if they want to look at ads now, alerting them that they will be charged for the time spent looking at ads.

Maybe AOL should have paid more attention to those annoyance factor studies. Back in 1998, a Grey/ASI study said that interstitials rank highest (15%) on the irritation factor, so it goes without saying that these ads have to first and foremost provide value and relevance to the user. As Millward Brown's Rex Briggs put it, "Targeting is more important than technology."