Online advertisers admit they “messed up,” promise lighter ads

Turns out Internet users don't like bloated, insecure ads. (credit: Fox)

The online advertising business, which has for years struggled against a rising tide of ad blockers by deploying ever-heavier and more-invasive ads, this week publicly acknowledged the error of its ways.

"We messed up," begins the post by Scott Cunningham of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), which represents 650 advertising and tech companies that produce 86 percent of all Internet ads in the US.

Cunningham makes the case that advertising was a huge boon to the early Web by making so much content freely available on demand, but he admits ads eventually got so slow and intrusive that they actively damaged the user experience.