New IE may burst pop-up bubble

Some publishers have also devised ways of compiling that command into code within the page, prompting it to launch later or to appear as a Microsoft browser window rather than an ad. They do this by writing the command in JavaScript or Dynamic HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) within the Web page.

Online advertising experts said they don't expect elaborate workarounds to win a widespread following, particularly among mainstream advertisers who buy the lion's share of online ads.

"It's not sexy and it's not easy, and probably causes more broken images on a page than anything else," said Chris Saridakis, cofounder of DoubleClick's technology unit and now the chief operating officer of online ad-banner company PointRoll. "Not many high-end advertisers will screw around with that."

Plan B
Web-based advertising technology providers seem to be preparing for the worst. DoubleClick, a major source for serving pop-up advertisements, said that it will rely on banners and rich-media ads if and when IE pop-up blocking becomes a standard feature.

"DoubleClick has a plan so that we can serve standard and rich-media ads -- without interruption to service -- on behalf of our clients," a company representative said.

PointRoll's Saridakis said that direct marketers such as casinos will be devastated by the ubiquity of pop-up blockers because they rely on those few people who do click on their ads. Roughly 60 of every 1,000 pop-ups or pop-unders result in clicks, he estimated.

Major brand advertisers will be less affected because they have already been moving away from the format, Saridakis said. He said ad agencies and Fortune 500 companies view it as the "anti-Christ" because of consumers' hatred of them. Response rates, although about three times better than those for banners, are often not worth the risk for big brands or publishers.

Gar Richlin, chief operating officer of Advertising.com, one of the Internet's biggest pop-up purveyors, lamented an inevitable loss of the format.

"That format is going to be lost, and right now we don't see what's going to replace it," Richlin said. "It's an attention grabber and that's what advertising is all about."

He added that publishers are likely to acquiesce to the banishment of pop-ups.

"There's no question there's an absolute tension between the format and the population," he said. "There's nobody out there who's going to get in front of this train."

Makers of anti-pop-up software might also have to adapt their business models if people become accustomed to blocking ads within IE rather than looking to third-party software.

InterMute, the maker of free and paid ad-removing software AdSubtract, already plans to introduce new Internet ad-muting features. The company has said it will let people block commercial listings that appear within search results -- a popular and growing form of online advertising. The feature, called Search Sanity, will be a part of its AdSubtract 3.0, downloadable software that sells for about $30 and is expected to launch in December.

"It's interesting how slowly the big media sites have reluctantly dragged themselves to the pop-up blocking party. It's about time," said InterMute CEO Ed English. "Users clearly are fed up with pop-ups and other types of overdone Internet advertising."