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"Ethan Zuckerman, the inventor of the pop-up advert, has issued an apology for his heinous creation. The programmer said in a recent essay that he did not realise what he was unleashing upon the internet when he devised the code for the world&amp;#039;s first pop-up ad more than 20 years ago.  &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m sorry. Our intentions were good,&amp;quot; he wrote on The Atlantic.  &amp;quot;It was a way to associate an ad with a user&amp;#039;s page without putting it directly on the page, which advertisers worried would imply an association between their brand and the page&amp;#039;s content.&amp;quot; The pop-up ad has been a source of irritation among internet users since it first reared its ugly head, more so when this form of marketing comes with viruses and scams in tow. Zuckerman, who currently serves as head of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, wrote the original code for advertising-funded company Tripod.com. His essay goes on to say that the internet must turn its back on the ad-based business model, describing it as &amp;quot;the original sin of the web&amp;quot;. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/internet/news/a590661/pop-up-advert-inventor-ethan-zuckerman-apologises-for-his-creation/>