Audio ads now that play on their own?

[IAMTHESTIG]

I had the techspot.com home page up in my browser, but the browser was minimized. It had been for several minutes then while I was on a phone call with a customer an audio ad started playing. Bringing up my browser I saw the audio was playing on the techspot.com website. In addition to that the web page was so slow I couldn't really scroll around quickly to find the ad to mute/pause it so I had to kill the tab.

First off I HATE audio ads, even more so ones that play on their own without user interaction. Second, it would be nice to see some improvement in the website so it will run smoother.

Ultimately though audio ads annoy me so much that if they continue to be a problem I simply stop visiting the site. Not only did it annoy me but it interrupted my business while the site was minimized which is not cool at all. I ask that you do not place any ads on the site that automatically play audio. Thank you.

 

[mailpup]

I'm on this site a lot but I haven't run into this yet. I wonder if you picked up some malware.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

I don't think so... haven't had any other activity. And the audio was coming from the techspot tab. I'll check my machine just in case though.

 

[mailpup]

I'll post if I run into it myself and hopefully anyone else will too. Julio will fix it I'm sure.

 

[Julio Franco]

This, of course, should not be happening. In order to report it to the ads team I need to know the advertiser/company on the ad, do you recall what was it?

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

I scanned my machine and haven't found any malware... usually malware is quite obvious. Anyhow now unfortunately I don't recall what the ad was for, I was on the phone with a customer so I was trying to pay attention to them. If I get another one I'll certainly let you know. Thanks for your concern and desire to take action.

On a personal note I can't believe advertisers think making website ads that play video/audio automatically. When I see that I take note and avoid the product as I have a strong dislike for that marketing strategy.

 

[Julio Franco]

Thank you @IAMTHESTIG. Albeit possible, I don't think this was a malware thing, but rather a bad audio ad that slipped in our rotation. If you see one again do let me know so I can have it removed asap.

 

[Rabbit01]

I had same problem with one of those ads by teads.tv, forgot which product though. Most only plays the audio if I hover the mouse pointer over the ad, however, this one started when the page loaded. The ad went away after some time, like other ads from teads.tv. I'll follow up w/ ad info if I see it again.

 

[Julio Franco]

If you can see who the advertiser is we can resolve it asap. I'll still contact the ad guys.
That autoplay video ad (with audio off by default) is a new unit we started testing last week.

 

[Rabbit01]

Audio started playing on it's own w/o mouse pointer hovering over the ad.

 

[Julio Franco]

Reporting this now, thank you.

 

[Rabbit01]

Thanks.

 

[Julio Franco]

Talked to the ad guys today, the audio off thing shouldn't happen again. Furthermore, we are moving those ads to have audio on click, not just on hover which should improve the overall experience.

 

[Rabbit01]

That's great, thanks for making the changes.

 

[Rabbit01]

This ad also has a problem w/ audio auto-starting, without mouse pointer hovering over the ad.

 

[Julio Franco]

... reporting this ASAP.

 

[DelJo63]

I scanned my machine and haven't found any malware... usually malware is quite obvious. Anyhow now unfortunately I don't recall what the ad was for, I was on the phone with a customer so I was trying to pay attention to them. If I get another one I'll certainly let you know. Thanks for your concern and desire to take action.

On a personal note I can't believe advertisers think making website ads that play video/audio automatically. When I see that I take note and avoid the product as I have a strong dislike for that marketing strategy.

YEAH!! Huntington Post use to do that and I immediately closed the tab/window whenever it did (haven't see any such pages in so long I wouldn't know one if I did see one).

edit:see what I mean, it's http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

 

[cliffordcooley]

I do believe if I was an admin to a site, I'd make sure I could monitor all ads through a single page link. A page with all ads if you will. A problem with audio would be easy to catch this way. It would also allow for viewing the type of ads being displayed. I'd make sure some how I could see all the ads in rotation.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

I want to thank you Julio for your dedication in keeping the TS site clean from obnoxious ads. Unfortunately there is an ad playing that starts with sound before it gets muted automatically. The delay until it gets muted varies but this ad has played on at least six different TS pages I visited. The ad is a large banner at the top of every TS page and appears to be for "G Suite" by Google. There is a embedded YouTube video that starts playing video, which eventually gets muted. I wonder if anyone else is getting this delayed mute issue or if it is just me.

 

[Julio Franco]

Never got around to reply to this but after your report I saw the ad and the audio on thing had been corrected.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Thank you. That will make my viewing experience much more pleasurable now.