The Arms Race Continues

Whether we are talking about malware or invasive advertising, Udi Manber's metaphor of the arms race still prevails. I suspect that many of my Examiner.com readers have noticed that ads that pop up behind the primary browser window have become the "new thing" and are beginning to reach epidemic numbers. Furthermore, because these are "background," rather than "foreground," it appears that the blocking option in Safari does not do a damned bit of good. To add insult to injury, these pages also launch a video on the article page (with a very loud soundtrack), sometimes accompanied by a second video that pops up in the foreground, usually with both running simultaneously. The point of the arms race metaphor is that the people who are determined to push these messages to you "by any means necessary" always seem to be one step ahead of those system development groups that are supposedly more interested in your productivity than your susceptibility to impulse buying. However, when you consider the extent to which work productivity may no longer be on Apple's priority list, those guys in system development (assuming they still exist) haven't got a chance. My guess is that it will not take long for the tablet-using crowd to discover that they are just as vulnerable as thus of us who persist with our "old school" technology!