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Pop-up ads or pop-ups are forms of
online advertising Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...
on the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...
. A pop-up is a
graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...
(GUI) display area, usually a small window, that suddenly appears ("pops up") in the foreground of the visual interface. The pop-up window containing an advertisement is usually generated by
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...
that uses cross-site scripting (XSS), sometimes with a secondary payload that uses
Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...
. They can also be generated by other vulnerabilities/security holes in browser security. A variation on the pop-up window, the pop-under advertisement, opens a new browser window under the active window. Pop-unders do not interrupt the user immediately but appear when the user closes the covering window, making it more challenging to determine which website created them.


History

Pop-up ads originated on the Tripod.com webpage hosting site in the late 1990s.
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...
provided the capability for a web page to open another window. Ethan Zuckerman claims he used that capability to launch advertisements in separate windows as a response to complaints from advertisers about their ads appearing on pages with sexual content. Zuckerman later apologized for the unforeseen nuisance pop-up ads had evolved into.


Pop-up blocking

Web development and design technologies allow an author to associate any item on a pop-up with any action, including with a cancel or innocent-looking button. Because of bad experiences and apprehensive of possible damage that they may cause, some users do not click on or interact with any item inside a pop-up window whatsoever, and may leave the site that generated them or block all pop-ups.
Opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
was the first major browser to incorporate tools to block pop-up ads; the
Mozilla Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...
browser later improved on this by blocking only pop-ups generated as the page loads. In the early 2000s, all major web browsers except
Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...
let users block unwanted pop-ups almost completely. In 2004, Microsoft released
Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...
SP2, which added pop-up blocking to Internet Explorer. Most modern browsers provide pop-up blocking tools; third-party tools add other features, such as ad filtering.


Fake close buttons

Users of websites and web applications continuously experience unwanted pop-up ads throughout the course of their normal interaction with a web browser. Ordinarily, users respond by dismissing the pop-up through the "close" or "cancel" feature of the window hosting the pop-up. Because this is a typical response, some authors of pop-up advertising depend on this and create on-screen buttons or controls that look similar to a "close" or "cancel" option. When the user chooses one of these "simulated cancel" options, the button performs an unexpected or unauthorized action (such as opening a ''new'' pop-up or downloading an unwanted file on the user's system).


Circumventing pop-up blockers

A ''hover ad'' or ''in-page pop-up'' uses
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...
to combine a
banner ad A web banner or banner ad is a Online Advertising, form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract web traffic, tra ...
, and a pop-up window that appears in front of the browser screen. JavaScript imposes an advertisement over a webpage in a transparent layer. This advertisement can appear in a variety of forms. For example, an advertisement can contain an animation that links to the advertiser's site. An advertisement can also look like a normal
window A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent ma ...
. Pop-up blockers cannot block the ad because it is a part of the webpage, but it can be blocked with third-party ad blockers such as AdBlock and Adblock Plus, or by using custom style sheets.


URL redirection

URLs are sometimes redirected to advertisement pages by URL redirection. URLs are sometimes opened in a new tab and then the content of the old background tab will be replaced with an advertisement page by URL redirection, other times it switches the tab the user is on to the advertisement tab. Adblock Plus and NoScript cannot block these redirects.


Techniques


"Pop-ups"

* Certain types of downloaded content, such as images, free music, and others, can cause pop-ups, and therefore should not be trusted, especially pornographic sites' pop-ups (known as a "pornado" or "porn-storm", as coined by John C. Dvorak.) Also, the pop-ups sometimes look like ordinary web pages, and the name of the site shows up in a search bar. * Many websites use pop-ups to display information without disrupting the page currently open. For example, they may provide needed extra guidance when filling in a form on a web page, without causing the loss of any information already entered into the form. Most pop-up blockers allow this kind of pop-up. Some, however, reload the page, losing any information the user entered. * Some online shops use exit intent popups, for example offering discounts, in an attempt to retain users. * Some web based installers, such as that used by
McAfee McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American proprietary software company focused on online ...
, use a pop-up to install software. * On many web browsers, holding down the ctrl key while clicking a link makes it bypass the popup filter. * Clicking (even accidentally) on one pop-up may open other pop-up ads.


Pop-under ads

Pop-under ads are similar to pop-up ads, but the ad window appears hidden behind the main browser window rather than superimposed in front of it. As pop-up ads became more widespread and intrusive, often taking up the whole computer screen, many users would immediately close the pop-up ads that appeared over a site without looking at them. Pop-under ads do not immediately impede the view of content, but remain unnoticed until the user closes or minimizes the main browser window.


Pop-under ad technology

A pop-under ad involves two JavaScript functions introduced in 1995 with the Netscape 2.0b3 browser. Modern web publishers and advertisers use it to create a window in front of the user's screen, load an advertisement, and then send it behind the screen. // create a new window in front of the current site window.open(URL, windowName windowFeatures; // push the loaded advertisement back behind the browser window.focus(); Most modern browsers allow window.open to execute only if it was called by a user interaction (e.g., a mouse click)
event handler In computing, an event is a detectable occurrence or change in the system's state, such as user input, hardware interrupts, system notifications, or changes in data or conditions, that the system is designed to monitor. Events trigger responses or ...
. Any non-interactive calls (timer callback, load events, etc.) to window.open result in the new window being blocked. To bypass this restriction, most pop-under ads trigger on a mouse click event listener attached directly to the document or the document's body. This enables catching all mouse click events that were not consumed by other click event handlers, and calling window.open without being blocked. For example, when the user selects a text, the mouse click triggers the mouse click handler attached to the document and a pop-under opens using the above code. Other techniques to bypass the window.open call restriction do so by "hijacking" mouse clicks.


Hover ad

Hover ads, more commonly called in-page pop-ups, are a special type of pop-up ads created using Dynamic HTML,
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...
and similar
web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
technologies. Because they do not scroll with the web page, they appear to "hover" over the page, usually obscuring the content. Hover ads tend to be very hard to block by pop-up blocking software, because the hover ad window is an integral part of the HTML content of the web page. Thus software filtering the content has no algorithmic means of recognizing and removing parts of the content, either descriptive or procedural, that create, populate and manipulate the hover ad's window.


Patent controversy

ExitExchange.com filed for a patent in 2000 on a subset of pop-under advertising called an exit pop. After years of controversy and numerous articles on the pop-under patent, the patent was awarded by the
United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency in the United States Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark ...
(USPTO) in April and June 2008. The respective patent numbers are ('555) and ('229). '555 is related to the method of opening an exit pop from a toolbar or software application on a computing device, whereas '229 covers the method used to open an exit pop from an embedded script found within a media file (e.g., JavaScript code on a web page).


Copyright issues

Copyright aspects of pop-up advertising are discussed in the Wikipedia articles on
derivative works In copyright law, a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major copyrightable elements of a first, previously created original work (the underlying work). The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent from t ...
and
transformativeness In United States copyright law, transformative use or transformation is a type of fair use that builds on a copyrighted work in a different manner or for a different purpose from the original, and thus does not infringe its holder's copyright. Tr ...
. Both articles contain illustrations and links to examples of pop-up advertising.


See also

*'' 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. WhenU.com, Inc.'', lawsuit between 1-800 Contacts and WhenU SaveNow over pop-up ad placement * Ad serving *
Adware Adware, often called advertising-supported software by its developers, is software that generates revenue by automatically displaying Online advertising, online advertisements in the user interface or on a screen presented during the installatio ...
and
Spyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is any malware that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device's securit ...
* Dark pattern *
Direct marketing Direct marketing is a form of communicating an offer, where organizations communicate directly to a Target market, pre-selected customer and supply a method for a direct response. Among practitioners, it is also known as ''direct response ...
* In-session phishing * Interstitial webpage * List of pop-up blocking software * Malvertising *
Malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...
* Messaging spam * Modal window *
Ransomware Ransomware is a type of malware that Encryption, encrypts the victim's personal data until a ransom is paid. Difficult-to-trace Digital currency, digital currencies such as paysafecard or Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, cryptocurrencies are com ...
* Technical Support Scam


Notes

*Adams, Cecil.
What's up with popup ads?
. '' The Straight Dope''. October 15, 2004 . *Zabunov, S.
From Annoyance to Pleasure - The Artistic Popup Approach
. May 12, 2006. *US Patent 7,386,555

*US Patent 7,353,229 "[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7,353,229&OS=7,353,229&RS=7,353,229 Post-session internet advertising system]"


References


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pop-Up Ad Digital marketing Information technology management Online advertising methods Online advertising Types of malware Web 1.0