Downright Annoying

Is it just me or are Yahoo!'s new generation of adverts just downright annoying? I have Yahoo! as my homepage so that the news and sports headlines are in front of me whenever I switch on Internet Explorer. If anything catches my eye I read it.

Now though, you are happily reading an article when a pop-up springs right in front of the text. But not your normal pop-up oh no - I have Google toolbar to stop those. [If you want to stop pop-ups Google Toolbar is great and a free download from http://toolbar.google.com/en_GB/ ]. These are cunningly designed to not be affected by any anti pop-up devices.

Annoying people is not a good way of promoting your product or service for a number of reasons:

• Blinded by rage, I never even notice what the advert is for. It just gets a four letter salvo while I locate the Close button.

• If you do notice what it is for, would you really want to be associated with interrupting what somebody is doing? It's like saying, "Here's my product - aren't we a pain in the neck?!"

• It's another way of dragging down the rest of us respectable marketeers. Advertising is fine in the right place - ie. where people expect it. I don't mind an advert next to the article that may catch my eye and lead me to click on it, but adverts should REQUEST your attention not INSIST on it.

These latest ads are, to me, about as welcome as someone selling electricity at tea time. Please Yahoo! - stop it or I'll go elsewhere for my information and never see any of your adverts.