Enough of the online animations!

[Chel]

Being photosensitive, there are many online ads that trigger my simple partials, or at least give me early warning signs.

I got sick of one in particular, which seemed to be very prevalent, so contacted their customer service to let them know what effect their ad has on me, and what steps they could take to reduce that effect on me, and other photosensitive epileptics.

So far, they've sent me three emails, to apologise that their ad may have caused me discomfort; to say my email has been referred to the appropriate department; and to ask me to participate in a survey.

Who knows where this will go, but maybe they'll think about their advertising and upsetting potential clients with needless animations, if more of us let them know how we are affected...

 

[Bernard]

Where are you seeing these ads? On CWE?

FYI, you have the power to disable animated images on your computer.

 

[Chel]

No, Bernand, everywhere on the internet. This wasn't a rant against CWE, but a suggestion that we can try and help make a better online world for ourselves by letting advertisers know that their ads have a negative effect on us.

I've previously disabled animated images on my very old computer (3.1 - remember the days?) before I was epileptic, but that also meant I missed out on a lot of good stuff. I want the good stuff, but for these few advertisements not to jump out at me and set me off.

I may never get my wish, but at least I'm trying.

cheers

 

[Nakamova]

Right now there's a terrible ad for the Verizon/Samsung Droid phone -- lots of flashing lights, just like the strobe test they do during an EEG. I'm not photosensitive, but I cringe when I see it, and hope that no-one who IS photosensitive is exposed to it.

 

[Bernard]

Those intrusive animated ads that "float" over a page like you see on yahoo.com are generally Adobe Flash based widgets. There are several options for disabling them:

http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/disable_flash.asp

http://blog.lroot.com/articles/techniques-to-easily-disable-flash-in-firefox-and-ie/