At last, taking a pop at annoying online ads

For a long time the Internet has been home to ads on the edge of law for malicious marketing and threatening our data security and privacy.

One morning I sat down at my desk and switched on my computer, ready to embrace the new week. Unfortunately one thing that wasn't new was the host of gaudy flashing pop-up ads trying to attract my attention.

As I tried to get on with my work I was interrupted by a procession of pop-ups urging me to register for an online role-playing fantasy game, trying to entice me with an array of weird and wonderful weapons. While I've no interest in this kind of stuff, I could have done with one of these weapons with super powers to rid me of these annoying ads.

As it was, I lost my own battle with the pop-ups. Initially, I tried to press the seemingly helpful "close" button on the ad box but this was a fake and triggered five equally annoying web pages to open. The pages I accidentally opened were all junk sites recommending all sorts of online opportunities, from visa applications and studying overseas to making friends online and buying game accounts.

Refusing to be beaten, I next tried to uninstall plug-ins and delete cookies from my browser. However, my lack of IT nous was exposed and it soon became obvious that my attempts had failed. Next time I logged on, the pop-ups were still there, playing hide and seek with me.

I was trying to ignore them and concentrate on writing when a particularly garish and annoying ad popped up. It irritated me so much that I immediately did a search for pop-up blocking software and pressed the download button on the most promising candidate.

Big mistake. The application I downloaded was fake and instead of banishing the pop-ups, generated more. It even modified my browser and its homepage so that when I went there I was besieged by a horde of pop-ups.

Surely things couldn't get any worse? They could. The malevolent forces behind the pop-ups were studying my surfing habits and pushing information my way that they thought I'd like to click on. So if it wasn't bad enough that my work was being disrupted, my privacy was also being exposed.

As I was discovering, tackling pop-ups is a tricky business. They can be generated by vulnerabilities in browser security, often come when you're downloading content and are used by some web-based installers to install software.

A DIY approach may thwart them, but is not an easy option for most web users.

Eric Jiang, an IT expert at Shanghai R&D Public Service Platform, a government-backed research and development policy institution, said often users must modify browser scripts themselves to rid themselves of pop-ups. "If someone has programming expertise they can cope with it but for most people it's too difficult," Jiang said.

A customer services official with leading Internet security company Qihoo 360 Technology Co Ltd said users can change settings on the Qihoo 360 browser to block pop-ups, including information pushed by Qihoo 360 itself. However, this has its shortcomings.

"But we can't guarantee that this will work on every occasion as some malicious pop-up ads may bypass our filter," admitted the 360 official.

All of which led me to wonder whether instead of looking for a technical solution to pop-ups, we should look to regulatory one. Indeed, that's why the State Administration for Industry and Commerce published a draft recently for future rules that would enable users to say no to pop-ups.