Sunday, June 26, 2011

Tech: Time to boycott ABC News

Today, you're on DSL, broadband or dial-up, and you're surfing the net and paying whatever fee you have for each month that you use the net. So it may not seem like a big deal to some of you what's happening with ABC News.

But today there are also people using WiFi on their laptops, with a router possibly, and maybe they have unlimited WiFi each month or maybe, as with many cell phone plans (see AT&T's 'data plan') for surfing online, you're limited to the amount you can receive and transfer without paying additional costs.

What does that have to do with ABC News?

If you go to a CBS News story or NBC News story, you will often find video on the page to a televised report. And, if you want to watch it, you can click on play and it will start streaming.

Not so with ABC News, a news site which also provides "pop up" ads.

abc

That screen snap is from ABC News' home page. Every one of those "latest headlines," when you click on them takes you to a text story that ABC pairs with a video (sometimes about the same story, sometimes not) which immediately begins streaming. Well, immediately after their commercial stops streaming.

You didn't ask to watch a video. You clicked on the links to a news story. But that's ABC News is conducting itself.

It makes a big difference if you are on a plan where you pay for the amount of date you pull in.

ABC News needs to stop their videos from playing automatically and leave it up to the web visitor to determine whether or not they should watch a video.