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By Stefanie Olsen, 12 March 2003 10:45

NEWS AOL is introducing new pop-up advertising controls which will enable its members to suppress the intrusive ads while they surf the web, as part of its bid to pacify customers frustrated with unwanted ads. The ISP giant plans to automatically install pop-up-stopping features onto the desktops of its 33 million members during the next two weeks - though impatient members can also download it directly. The tool, called Web Pop-Up Controls, will let people zap most ads that pop up or under requested web pages throughout the internet, outside of the AOL service. The controls are being introduced at the request of AOL members, many of whom list pop-up ads as one of the chief causes of ire while visiting the service and the web, according to the company. AOL spokesman David Gang said in a statement: "AOL's new pop-up controls will allow our members to explore the web without being trapped in pop-up purgatory. With a single click, AOL members now have the power to stop the pop." The move backs up AOL's pledge to cut back on the unwanted promotions littering its proprietary net access service, the internet and email inboxes. In October, the company promised members that it would stop delivering pop-ups and pop-unders from third-party advertisers. But up until February, members were still complaining about in-house ads that sprang up over pages on the proprietary server. The service's in-house ads have been cut back "dramatically" in the last month, said AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein. In addition, AOL has introduced new controls for members to block the mounting spam to inboxes. AOL Web Pop-Up Controls is available to subscribers of AOL 8.0, the company's newest web access software. The tool, which will be distributed to 10 per cent of AOL's members each day during the next two weeks, can be viewed as a button at the bottom middle of the web browser window. Members can modulate the controls or turn them off. And with each pop-up blocked, there is an optional, audible notification. The tool blocks most pop-ups, except for those that people have requested or ones coming from secure sites such as banking and merchant web pages. Web Pop-Up Controls will also not catch pop-ups created with Java or Macromedia Flash technology, which AOL estimates to be a fraction of those on the web. People can also download the tool directly from AOL Keyword: Pop-Up Controls.