AdPunisher

I have no problem with well-behaved banner ads. But increasingly they seem to be locked in a sort of arms race of attention-getting behaviours.

Windows pop up over the text content but within the browser, dance around so you have to chase their close buttons (if they have them at all), play music but don't have an off switch, and generally harsh your mellow when all you're trying to do is waste some valuable working time reading about the seven best ways to demotivate your staff.

And it's not just porn sites that do this - 'reputable' sites like Wired and New Scientist are among the worst offenders. There needs to be a way for the hapless workday web-surfer to Strike Back !

Enter AdPunisher - an enforcer of social norms in banner ads. It works like this:

1. You register with the AdPunisher site (via a captcha) so it knows how many unique users it has.

2. In return, you download a browser toolbar button marked 'Punish!'.

3. When you see a truly annoying banner ad, you simply click the 'punish' button, and then click on the banner ad the way it wants you to.

4. AdPunisher then sends that URL to the AdPunisher server's "annoying ads" database.

5. If more than some percentage (say 60%) of AdPunisher users find an ad annoying enough to punish, that URL gets sent out to all the AdPunisher clients' "blocked" lists. Thenceforth, any attempt to go to that URL is simply discarded.

So you can click on an annoying banner ad and it will go away, *but* the advertiser won't get a click, so the site host won't get their two cents worth.

There's probably wrinkles in this, and of course advertisers will find countermeasures, but that's the general idea...