I got caught in advertising hell at Salon.com tonight while trying to read an article linked from another site. I have my browsers set to prompt me before storing any cookies on my machine, and naturally said no when Salon asked to store a cookie. Ultramercial then wanted to store something too, so of course I declined. That meant I couldn’t see the article because Salon wants you to subscribe, sight unseen, or watch video commercials to get a “free pass”.

Since I wanted to read the article the other writer had commented on, I went back and accepted the cookie from Salon, and then from Ultramercial and watched a completely irrelevant (to a non-US resident) commercial. When it was over, I clicked to go to the next page, and found myself being prompted to watch again. This repeated itself several times until I cleared all cookie settings for both sites.

Surely advertisers must realize that this type of trouble is more likely to put people off than to encourage them to buy?