To counteract slowing revenue growth and declining click through rates, ad shops are modifying the traditional banner ad into larger, more attention-grabbing formats recently approved by the Internet Advertising Bureau. We've been getting a lot of fan mail about that. Ad servers like Doubleclick Inc. track Web users' movements to increase the effectiveness of their ads. The company does not link Web habits with personal information without permission, and allows users to opt out of its data collection techniques. For Web surfers uncomfortable with this practice, many ad blockers allow users to block cookies and Web bugs completely, or only allow them on selected sites.
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That's the model we've all grown up with with television. Some ad blockers don't deny that their products could undermine the effectiveness of Internet advertising. Everybody acknowledges that the ad model is broken on the Web. Ginsburg said while click through rates may have declined to around 0.5 percent, the total number of clickthroughs is higher than it was a year ago as more people are online. Furthermore, the slowdown in revenue growth has hit the entire advertising industry, not just the Internet, he said.