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Whiting Out

The case for and against open-source software that allows you to white-out online ads is fairly nuanced. I find pop-ups as annonying as the next person but don't worry too much about watching an ad for Ralph Lauren in return for a day-pass to Salon. The annoyance is outweighed by what I get in return for it. Every individual must have specific criteria for what ads they would like to see or perhaps tolerate versus what they would white out without hesitation.

The all or nothing approach would not bode well either for the seller or the potential consumer. Handing the controls over to the consumer would yeild valuable data for the advertizers and enable them to fine tune their campaigns. If the vast majority of a target group have a certain product on their white-out list, chances are that ad-space was not driving in any traffic even when the option to white-out did not exist. Instead of having to guess at the outcome and have to pay for it, there would now be a way to acertain a priori and get the formula right the very first time. That is certainly a good thing.

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