The message form is indeed a popup, launched by the same sort of code that launches ad popups. It always pisses me off when I run into an area of legitimate Web site design that's been discredited by ad-banner sleaziness. There are legitimate uses for cookies too, but the ad-sleazes have understandably made people paranoid about cookies.

I'm deeply ambivalent about ad-blocking software. Ad-banners and popups are infuriating and intrusive...yet I can't quite sweep under my ethical rug the knowledge that blocking ads is a form of theft-of-services. It punishes the ad networks less than it punishes the Web sites that depend on ad revenue. I've decided to avoid ad dependency myself, but I can understand why most Web sites feel compelled to rely on advertising, out of the very real perception that the public is unwilling to pay for what it gets on the Web.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if one day the existing laws against theft-of-services are expanded to prohibit ad-blocking software. The most common rationalization for using it is the assertion that "well, I didn't sign any agreement with them to accept their ads". Right. Try that one in court if you're caught tapping the electrical grid, the phone network, or your cable TV system. Just because you don't have a pre-existing agreement not to steal doesn't mean that the law doesn't recognize theft as theft.

I don't see any way out of the dilemma, short of a radical change in the public's willingness to pay for what it gets on the Web, and thus to purchase the right to control the format of delivery. The advertisers pay for it, the advertisers control it, and what we get serves their agenda, not ours. I'm not holding my breath for any such 180-degree turnaround.

--Robert