Hi-tech company AdScience this week unveiled a product designed to
filter out internet advertising, but online sales experts have denied it
poses a threat to the industry.
AdScience claims it can increase the speed of the user’s browser by up
to 500 per cent by filtering out 99 per cent of online advertisements.
The company claims the tiny (320k), self-installing program is also
extremely quick and easy to get hold of.
AdFilter uses artificial intelligence to block banners, promotional ads
and ’pretty much anything else you can throw at it’. AdScience
programmers also analyse any advertising that does slip through the net,
and immediately update the program to counteract these ads.
AdScience predicts that AdFilter, which is available for a free 30-day
trial and costs pounds 15 for permanent use, will pay for itself in the
first month of use by radically cutting time spent online.
But Mark Nall of new-media sales house 24/7 was unworried: ’AdFilter’s
claims about page loading times seem extremely far fetched. The ads and
the page itself come from two different sources, so the download time is
unaffected.’
Nall added: ’Online advertising in the UK is about niche marketing; the
ads are contextual and actually add value to the website editorial. In
addition, whether or not people are using a system like this is
immaterial.
I guarantee my clients a certain number of banners, and if a browser
filters out a banner we simply don’t include that page-hit in our
total.’
Nall also pointed out that few people are using the system. ’If someone
like Microsoft or Netscape introduced something like this into their
systems then there might be a bit of cause for concern, but I don’t
think enough people will use it for there to be any impact on our
industry,’ he said.
Vic Synott, managing director of TSMSi agreed. ’This type of thing has
been available for a long time. It is not a threat,’ he said.
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