The Volokh Conspiracy

No, Microsoft is undoubtedly doing this to attack Google's targeted advertising supported business model (whether that business model is good or bad is, um, "above my pay grade" - that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

Or, to use vernacular that Microsoft was once quite a bit more familiar with, it has merely decided to "cut off [Google's] air supply."

I used the word "pitch" intentionally.

Or perhaps equally accurately, "spin," "dissemble," "prevaricate," "deceive," "engage in fraudulent inducement" and various other happy synonyms?

Why am I reminded of Thomas Penfield Jackson's rather infamous observations about Microsoft's veracity that became rather more public during the U.S. v. Microsoft appeal than he had intended?

Judge Jackson, in spite of the findings of the appellate court, continued to deny that [he was biased against Microsoft] and insisted that any perception of bias in the minds of observers was created by Microsoft. His statements were a response to several evasive tactics Microsoft used at the trial, including falsifying video evidence, non-responsiveness on the stand, and denying allegations contained in evidence

(with my apologies for using Wikipedia as a crutch - it was a lot faster than citing the appellate record and a series of post-trial interviews, of course).

In addition, as I understand it, this "feature" was originally identified as a bug in the way the new browser handled ads.

Rather than fix the bug, they decided that they would call it a privacy feature.

Go figure.

--PtM

If they haven't removed all the nanny ware that they put in IE7, I am not interested.

Microsoft has been doing some new things. For example, you can download for free Visual Studio Express which includes Visual Basic, C# and C++. This is a very good student level programing package and they support it, all free.

For clarity, those are Firefox plugins.

If you visit websites about video games, or women's lingerie, or cars, I think that indicates you are interested in those subjects and would probably prefer to see ads on those subjects.

Presupposing that you want to see ads at all (which most of us don't), what makes you think I want my kids (who can very easily see the screen over my shoulder) seeing things related to websites that I might visit after they go to bed?

Jim, but isn't it a little ironic given that the search engines are themselves funded by advertisements? Advertising is annoying, but it's also the reason we get so much free stuff online.

I would argue that the most commonly available types of advertising are counterproductive because they generate more anger than sales. I have no problem with unobtrusive advertising like the google text ads that appear on the sides of pages, but the vast majority of internet advertising is a serious hindrance.

Remember that it isn't completely free to block ads. I have to:
a) notice that the site I am viewing is behaving oddly and become aggravated to some degree
b) spend about 10 seconds of effort to find all the html elements and javascript that comprise the offending advertisement and enter a pattern to block it
c) reload the page to make sure I got rid of it
d) repeat b and c until it is all gone and I can go back to reading the page

This means that an advertisement that I only notice when I am looking around the screen for help finding something (to buy perhaps) will probably never get blocked because it never crosses the threshold of interfering with what I intend to do on that page. Unfortunately this is the exception. Things I remember blocking:
-intellitext advertising that makes it so that any time your mouse wanders over particular words in an article, a window pops up and blocks what you were reading to advertise something related to that word.
-popups that force you to close them to continue seeing the page.
-flashing, lewd or noisy flash animations.
-anything that is known to track me to facilitate the sending of spam

As a libertarian social experiment the internet is pretty neat. Through the wonders of software configuration, each of us can limit the ability of others to annoy us far more effectively than the government ever could, assuming it would adopt the policy any particular one of us preferred.

Malvolio,
My working assumption is that online advertisements, even ones targeted at my interests, are misleading and untrustworthy. If I want to purchase something online, I google and then check several different vendors. I would never, ever, click through an ad, even for something that I already wanted to purchase.

Thanks, everyone, for all the suggestions of useful Firefox extensions. Tonight, I'll be downloading the ones I don't already have.

Old news. The idea of the "porn" browser has been out there a while. Check Engadget. The idea is that, if you use the browser to visit places you'd rather keep quiet, you might want a one-step click to arrange more privacy.

We don't need ads to get free stuff. Firefox is free and it helps me eliminate ads.

Really? Where do you think Mozilla, the creator of Firefox, gets its funding....Google = ads. Nothing is free.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9776759-46.html