Well that was new

[firecat]

I just tried to sign up for a newsletter from a publishing company, and I encountered a Captcha. In order to see the text to type, I had to click a Play button. I was then treated to a video advertisement.

I think it's beyond offensive to have to watch an ad in order to prove I'm a human in order to sign up for a newsletter. Am I overreacting? Have I somehow failed to catch up with the new normal as far as advertising encroachment is concerned?

ETA: On further investigation, it appears that the video ad Captcha is associated with feedblitz.com, which is associated with typepad.com, which is where this publisher has its blog. The captcha is provided by http://www.solvemedia.com/ which says:

Our patent-pending technology turns CAPTCHA, those difficult combinations of distorted letters and numbers, into branded TYPE-IN™ ads. Every time a consumer enters a brand message, we share the revenue with our publisher partners.

So it's not the publisher's fault, at least not directly.

Comments

[sonia]

I'm with you! I avoid as much advertising as I can, "new normal" or not, and that publishing company would be unlikely to get any of my business.

[trouble]

What? Ew. :(

[lilacsigil]

So you mean that in order for you to read their information, about their business, you had to watch an ad? That's heinously unprofessional.

[kaigou]

I've hit that once or twice. Only instances I've seen it have been forums where the advertiser is one of the sponsors and/or paid money to have special advertising. At least, that's what I gathered, based on the various ads being the same that I then saw in the forum margins.

(What's worse is that when the video started playing, I thought, oh, this is like youtube, just skip past the advertising to get to whatever I'm supposed to watch. Err, no. Took me three tries to realize the advertisement was exactly what I was supposed to be watching. Grrrrrrrr.)

[firecat]

In this case, you could skip the ad after about 10 seconds, and the text to type appeared then. But you couldn't skip it right away.

[amadi]

That is absolutely heinous. And I'm betting an absolute accessibility nightmare.

[wild_irises]

Tell me it isn't Wiley. I don't think it is.

[firecat]

It isn't Wiley. :)

[azurelunatic]

Agh. Ugh.

[azurelunatic]

And Syne has ranted!

[firecat]

Wonderful rant!

[pulchritude]

I'm pretty sure I've encountered solvemedia captchas before, and noscript blocked the advert. (it blocks youtube adverts as well.)

[firecat]

Yeah, I was using Chrome's ad blocker instead of Noscript in Firefox. I use Noscript for a lot of things, but I hate having to use it on blogs because most blogs have a bazillion scripts and don't work right unless you know exactly which ones to enable.

[pulchritude]

idk, I feel like it's pretty easy to figure out, but of course not everyone would feel the same.

[evilawyer]

Am I overreacting?

No.

... with the new normal as far as advertising encroachment is concerned?

Even with the ETA info, this is unfortunately probably what it is.

[icarus]

That's equivalent to those old "you won a cruise, you just have to sit through this evening presentation where we sell at you" -- only in this version they throw a bag over your head and kidnap you to watch their ads.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Seems pretty offensive to me.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

If that was intentional, it was so offensive that it's hard to find good words for it.

In fact, it's so bad I find myself engaging in the wishful thinking that no one could be that stupid intentionally, outside of politicians. That I hope the publishing company was either lied to or cheated by the Captcha provider.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

That's pretty disgusting. O.o

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

That's some bright spark in Marketing trying to turn Captive Lecture Time into a profit-making activity, is what it is. And my reaction would have been twofold: (1) back right the hell out of there, and (2) contact the company to tell them why I had no further interest in their newsletter.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. Eesh.

[kshandra]

I encountered one of those myself earlier this week.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I have definitely never seen that, and I would also be offended.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

As Janis Ian said, "Attacking your own customers because they want to learn more about your products is a bizarre business strategy." This is a particularly good Horrible Example.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Yuck. I don't know if I'd call it offensive, exactly, but it's certainly some other category of Stuff I Do Not Approve.