[ Beneath the Waves ]

Advertising Policy

article by Ben Lincoln

 

I don't like ads on webpages. Back in the early days of the commercialized internet, they weren't so bad - static images like what one would see in a printed newspaper. Of course, marketing departments worldwide couldn't resist the lure of "new media technologies", and soon deployed a withering array of extremely annoying animated, sound-producing, pop-up opening advertisements.

In response, a variety of software was developed to strip this content back out on the client side. I use several Firefox extensions (Adblock Plus and FlashBlock in particular) to accomplish this goal. I'd be a bit of a pompous hypocrite if I did that and featured advertisements on my websites, so even if someone were interested in purchasing ad space, the answer would be "no".

I do not use Google AdWords-style "sponsored links", or "affiliate" kickback programmes. If I link to a commercial website, it's because I think the content being linked to is relevant and/or useful in some way. Rest assured that if you purchase anything using a link on my site, all of your money is safely going into the pocket of that retailer.

My dislike of advertisements means that I also do not use "quasi-ad" content whose style is borrowed from the marketing world (lists of "affiliate sites", etc.).

 
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