The text of the resolution is as follows:

Description: Come on you know what i mean. these things are the bane of our existence. If they were band, it would create world peace as everyone would walk around in a happy daze knowing that there internet surfing will be trouble free.

Feel free to respond with your views.

I'm personally torn on this one. I hate pop-ups, but don't think the UN has any real mandate to legislate over this topic...

Resolutions of this nature should be rejected since they micromanage the internal affairs of nations. Since these are ads, approved by the site that is running the ad, there is not even an international aspect of controlling sources of the ads from outside ones borders.

What we really need is a process to keep resolutions written while stoned from coming up for a vote. :angry:

As much as I hate pop ups, I don't think that any governing power whether it be the UN or Canada as a region should be able to ban pop ups. As hudson bay said about the company choosing to use those type of ads, I believe it is up to a company to be able to choose how they advertise aslong as it is not in a harmful way (like viruses).

Although this is slightly off topic I believe that advertising through spyware or any other form where something is placed on a users computer without their notice should be banned.

Possibly a UN resolution on this type of advertising could be made that deals with spyware, viruses, and so on.

We certainly can sponsor a resolution to that end, if people agree with it. Provided I can be convinced that the UN has jurisiction over spyware (perhaps under the guise of unwanted and potentially malicious intrusions to indvidual freedoms), I'd be happy to assist with drafting such a proposal, and then coming up with a strategy to get it to a vote. (I had a proposal that i tried to get to a vote - I learned a lot, and feel with a solid team contacting all regional delegates, we could push any well reasoned proposal through to the voting stage).

I am with Missinaba on this one.

Spyware, Trojans and Viruses are the true threat of the internet. The potential destruction of property, appropriation of resources (virtual and otherwise), identity fraud and invasion of privacy, that are the causes of such malware are a far greater concern than pop up advertising.

This especially so when you consider that browsers like Mozilla Firebird are being developed with this in mind. It becomes very much the choice of the user whether he wants to see them or not. For instance in Mozilla FB you can simply block all popups from all sites, unless you want to make an exception for sites that require pop ups to be available.

On the flip side, if you want to see them, there is a simple option to allow all.

Seems to me, this proposal was taken up due to the emotive nature of the subject matter.

The Google anti-pop-up toolbar (available from google) is an addition to the IE Explorer Browser which also allows you to block pop-ups (unless you accidentally download spyware that overrides the Google toolbar's effectiveness).

In conclusion - google toobar good, popups bad!

That's the other major problem with this resolution - there are already good solutions to this problem. So getting a organization like the UN to compensate for someone's computer inexperience is a case of the tail wagging the dog...

I would tend to agree with Hudson, is the UN the appropriate forum to deal with this issue. It seems that we see alot of these UN resolutions that really should not have been put to a vote. Poorly worded, no teeth etc.

yeah there's no point in the U.N. Banning/blocking pop ups when a person can easily do it themselves.