Advertising's Role (2)

It's no wonder then, why advertisers are seen as part of the problem. With pop-up ads that are intrusive and banner ads that direct a person away from their destination and ‘loop' the URL so that a user has to exit out of their browser completely, spam and internet advertising are closely linked.

Paralleling Burnett's survey, though an advertiser may know the difference between spam and an ethical interactive ad, consumers are not getting the picture. Thus, it wouldn't be hard to surmise that consumers may be turned off from most internet advertising. Advertisers and companies that use the net to promote themselves with ads are guilty by association, which is why this is a problem for more than just the internet providers and organizations trying to fight spam.

Compounding the problem of spam, marketing solicitors are fighting the definition of spam to fit their needs. Some marketers are even at a disagreement with the definition of spam, wanting the definition to include that the unsolicited messages also be “fraudulent” in nature before the message is considered to be spam (Sullivan, 2004).

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