Self-defeating Advertisements

My main web browser is Mozilla Firefox. It has this lovely little extension called AdBlock, which let's me eliminate irritating content from the web pages I view. So what does that have to do with the title of the article?

Simple: A lot of the time, I do not switch AdBlock on. Normal banner ads, that generally stay out of my way, just plain don't bother me that much. I'm happy to let them appear on the screen (even if I don't click on them). As soon as an ad starts intruding on my web experience, though, out comes AdBlock, so I can say "Leave me the hell alone, you rude, pushy mongrels". Some ads get my attention without triggering that reflex (Absolut and IBM come to mind), because they don't block the main text, and are genuinely entertaining. Other ads (especially ones that interfere with real content) discover that getting too much of my attention can be a bad thing - it raises the irritation level enough to get me to take action. And, thanks to AdBlock's address wildcards, that will mean far more than just the one ad that triggered the block will be eliminated from my web surfing.